


I'm Coasting on Potential Toward a Wall (and Your Naked Magic, Oh Dear Lord)

by PadawanRyan



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Labyrinth Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Evil Goblin King Pete, Found Family, HOLY FUCK THIS FIC THOUGH, Halloween, M/M, Rescue Missions, Things are not as they seem, Trick or Pete (Fall Out Boy), Underage Patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadawanRyan/pseuds/PadawanRyan
Summary: Kevin turned back around. “I don’t have time for this. When you think up a comeback, I’ll be downstairs having fun. You know, that thing you don’t know how to—”“I wish the goblins would come take you away right now!”He wasn’t sure what prompted him to say that. He had been writing about goblins lately, but his lyrics were absolute shit and Patrick wouldn’t have blamed himself had he decided to scrap the whole mythical aspect of the song for something less…childish. But goblins were on his mind and the wish came out of his mouth before he even realized what he was saying.
Relationships: Brief One-Sided Joe Trohman/Patrick Stump, Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Trick Or Pete 2020





	I'm Coasting on Potential Toward a Wall (and Your Naked Magic, Oh Dear Lord)

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, holy fuck. Previously, my [Legally Blonde AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274662) was the longest oneshot that I had ever written at only around 11K words, but this one has obviously well surpassed that. And I wrote this in about...2.5 days, I started one night and just kept going for the next couple days. I also wrote this _over a month ago_ and have just been waiting until now to post it.
> 
> This idea came to me rather randomly and I'm not even sure how. I just remember thinking about writing a oneshot where Pete dresses up as the Goblin King for Patrick, and then I thought "what if Pete _was_ the Goblin King?!" and immediately the story began to form in my end. Theming it around Hallowe'en seemed natural because 'tis the season and all, but once I realized that I was writing a Hallowe'en fic, of course I had to include it in Trick or Pete. There are obviously some elements of the story that are changed from the movie, such as the Hallowe'en setting, but almost every scene from the movie was included in its own way.
> 
> However, the ending is _very_ different, and I should remind you going in that _**things are not as they seem**_. There is a Peterick happy ending but I don't want to spoil for you how that will work.
> 
> There are numerous members of other bands who make appearances as creatures in the labyrinth. Since they do not generally introduce themselves by name, almost all creatures in the labyrinth are humanoid enough that you can more or less recognize who they are. You can also somewhat judge who they are simply by Patrick's observances that they look younger than him — although I am not necessarily sticking to canon ages (I'm envisioning Hayley Williams as more like 16 than 13, for example), anyone who is canonically younger than Patrick is still younger than Patrick. Or, they at least _appear_ younger than Patrick.
> 
> On that note, the timeline is also not canonical either. For example, Hallowe'en was definitely not on a Saturday in October 2001 when Patrick _was_ 17\. In this fic there are no references to technology besides phones - calling, not texting - but I am envisioning it as around early 2000s anyway (just like, in an abstract way).
> 
> This was also incredibly surreal to write because 17 years ago I was writing _a lot_ of Labyrinth fanfiction.

Frankly, Patrick wasn’t quite sure how he got himself into these situations. Not that this was a recurring thing – it wasn’t every day that he encountered a terrifyingly handsome stranger standing in his brother’s window – but Patrick _was_ seventeen years old.

Teenagers do see some things.

Though “some things” was really downplaying this entire situation.

It had been an otherwise unremarkable day, if you ignored almost everything that happened that day. It was unremarkable in the sense that Patrick had spent the day at the park near his house, an acoustic guitar on his lap and a lip between his teeth as he tried to figure out exactly what chord progression worked with the rest of the song. Patrick went to the park with his guitar all the time, so there was nothing remarkable about that. His internal debate about the chords and even his self-consciousness about the quality of his season-appropriate lyrics — well, these were things that he did almost every day.

No, what was _remarkable_ about the day was that his brother was home. Like, _for good_. The twenty-two year old had just finished college several months earlier and instead of going out to find a job and be a _fucking adult_ , he came back to make Patrick’s life miserable.

Maybe that was an overreaction. But Patrick was seventeen, that’s what teenagers do.

Patrick never asked what Kevin had been doing throughout the summer before suddenly showing up on his doorstep – well, his _mom’s_ doorstep – the day before Hallowe’en and announced that he was moving back in. His mom had not been too thrilled with the news, but welcomed her older son home with open arms because apparently parents miss their kids when they go off to college. It sounded a little silly to Patrick, but he supposed he’d have the chance to find out after he went onto college the following year.

But Patrick’s mom decided to go out for the evening – what did mothers even do on Hallowe’en when they didn’t have small children to take out trick or treating? – and, for some reason, decided that her _mature_ seventeen old year old needed a babysitter.

Kevin, to be exact.

Maybe it was punishment for Kevin too, because of course he didn’t want to be saddled with Patrick all night.

And that was made clear when, as soon as their mother had left, Kevin started to call up his friends for a Hallowe’en party. Because of course he couldn’t just hand out candy like their mother had suggested — no, Patrick was given that task. Or, rather, if Patrick didn’t do it then nobody would, and he figured that the best way to avoid his brother’s stupid party was to sit at the doorstep and hand out candy to children who still had faith in humanity. Patrick wished he still had that sort of magic in his life.

Hell, Patrick could do with _any_ sort of magic in his life.

It only took about an hour before Patrick was fed up. It wasn’t that handing out candy was such a chore – he didn’t mind the kids so much, and without his mom watching over his shoulder, he could sneak a chocolate bar every so often – but Kevin’s old friends were assholes, and Patrick was in their direct path as they came in through the front door. Which meant, of course, that Patrick was the recipient of their jokes and their jibes.

Finally, Patrick got up and searched around for Kevin amongst the crowd. “Can you ask them to knock it the fuck off?” he asked when he found him in the kitchen.

Kevin didn’t even look at him. “Don’t be such a buzzkill.”

“I’m serious. I didn’t even want to fucking deal with _you_ tonight, let alone those asswipes.”

“Patrick, stop being such a _baby_.”

And maybe that’s where a different younger brother would have given up, but no, not Patrick. Because Patrick had a wicked temper and Kevin was an asshole and Patrick was _not a fucking baby_. “Don’t walk away from me!” he called out as the older boy sauntered out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

“Look, I need your guitar,” Kevin told him, going right into Patrick’s room without even asking first. Patrick was affronted.

“You don’t even fucking play guitar.”

“No, but Adam—”

“No, no, _no_ ,” Patrick protested. “You are _not_ letting that asshole touch my guitar.”

Kevin didn’t even hesitate to grab the instrument by the neck and turn back around into the hallway. “It’ll be fine,” he assured the younger boy, but Patrick was not reassured. Patrick would never be reassured when it came to Kevin’s friends and _his_ guitar.

“Give it the fuck back!” he demanded, following as Kevin detoured to his own bedroom.

“Patrick, _calm down_.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down!” He was _really_ losing his temper now. “That’s my property, you have _no right_ —”

The older boy didn’t even so much as roll his eyes before grabbing his wallet from the dresser and stalking past Patrick, guitar still in hand. Patrick moved quickly, standing in the doorway to block his brother from leaving the room. “I said no,” he said, crossing his arms and attempting an intimidating glare. This time Kevin _did_ roll his eyes and wordlessly shoved the shorter boy aside. How the fuck was Patrick supposed to assert some authority over his own belongings when his brother wouldn’t even _listen_ to him?

“Don’t make me…” he began, unsure of how to finish the sentence. Kevin turned around, giving Patrick a skeptical look. “What?” he asked. “What will you do?”

Patrick faltered for a moment. “I’ll…”

Kevin turned back around. “I don’t have time for this. When you think up a comeback, I’ll be downstairs having _fun_. You know, that thing you don’t know how to—”

“I wish the goblins would come take you away right now!”

He wasn’t sure what prompted him to say that. He had been writing about goblins lately, but his lyrics were absolute shit and Patrick wouldn’t have blamed himself had he decided to scrap the whole mythical aspect of the song for something less…childish. But goblins were on his mind and the wish came out of his mouth before he even realized what he was saying.

However, Patrick had no time to even feel embarrassed about the childish statement before the room was plunged into darkness. He could hear thunder outside – when did it begin storming? – and Kevin’s smug response never came. At the very least, he expected his brother to laugh at him, to call him a baby again, but there was nothing. Peeking into the hallway from the doorway where he was left, Patrick saw his guitar on the floor. Kevin was nowhere in sight. How come he hadn’t even heard the guitar drop? That was an expensive instrument and if Kevin broke it when he tossed it—

But, somehow, Patrick knew that Kevin hadn’t intentionally dropped it. There was something eerie about the whole situation. Kevin couldn’t have disappeared that quickly. Patrick would have heard his steps on the stairs.

He was distracted from his anxious confusion when he heard the window crash open behind him. Whirling around, he was met by the most _gorgeous_ eyes he had seen in his entire life.

“Oh shit,” the stranger in the window remarked, “you’re _hot_.”

Patrick was beyond confused. “Excuse me?”

“I knew that you were supposed to be attractive – that’s the way the story goes, isn’t it? – but I didn’t actually expect you to be so fucking tempting.”

“Are you…” Patrick began, not quite sure what he wanted to ask. He took in the man’s elaborate costume. He was dressed like a mix between a seventeenth century king and a rock star, and his dark hair was glittering all over the place. Kevin’s party wasn’t a costume party, but this guy would not have been the only person to show up in costume. Still, the costume was elaborate for a party of drunken twenty-somethings.

“You should probably get back downstairs,” Patrick went with, point over his shoulder toward the hallway. “Despite his complete disregard for _my_ things, Kevin wouldn’t be too happy to know that someone was snooping around in his room.”

“Oh, I’m not here for the party,” the man stated. The way he said it put Patrick on edge, more than he already was. He…it _couldn’t_ be…

“Who are you?” he asked.

The stranger cocked an eyebrow. “Me?”

He had imagined, when writing his song about the mythical underground world, that there would be a handsome king to rule over the goblins. Patrick couldn’t quite put a face to this king in his head, nor a voice or even a sense of style. All he had envisioned was a powerful figure, exuding confidence and radiance in his every movement, but that was all that Patrick needed in order to come to the completely outlandish conclusion that—

“You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the goblin king.”

The man said nothing at all, but his face told Patrick everything he needed to know. He felt the blood drain from his face as he realized what this meant.

“I want my brother back,” he demanded without much fire in it before adding a soft, “please.”

“What’s done is done.”

“But…I didn’t mean it,” Patrick pleaded. He really hadn’t meant it because he didn’t think he was saying anything _real_. This was a fucking _song_ , after all — he dreamed up the man and the goblins and a fantasy couldn’t exactly kidnap his brother. Right?

The man – _king_ – cocked his eyebrow again. “Oh, you didn’t?”

“Please, where is he?”

“Patrick,” the king began. Patrick didn’t have the time to wonder how the man knew his name, because he was still too concerned with how the man was even _there_ , in the flesh, and talking to him in the first place. “Go back to your room,” he instructed. “Play with your instruments and write your music. Forget about your brother.”

Patrick shook his head. “I can’t.”

Suddenly, the king lifted his hand and a translucent orb appeared in at the tip of his fingers. “I brought you a gift,” he stated, twirling it around the front and back of his hand.

“What is it?” Patrick asked skeptically.

“It’s a crystal,” the man explained. “Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, I can show you your dreams.” This felt like a dream already, Patrick wanted to say, but he couldn’t find his voice in the moment as he watched the orb move. The king noticed him staring and asked, “do you want it?” Patrick wasn’t going to say yes – he _wasn’t_ – but he also could not bring himself to say no. “Then forget about him.”

“I can’t,” he repeated. “Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but I just want my brother back so I can put all of this behind me.”

Huffing, the king turned and pointed out the window. “He’s there, in my castle.”

Looking outside, Patrick no longer saw the children trick or treating nor the dark street of their Glenview neighbourhood. Instead, he saw a desert-like world with a massive stone labyrinth in the middle of it. The sun was raised high in the sky, and as he stepped closer to the window – and closer to the king – he could feel its heat beating down on him. This _had_ to be a dream, because it was night in Glenview and he was _pretty_ sure they didn’t live across a street from a labyrinth, and Patrick couldn’t recall going for a drive in the past two minutes.

The king’s voice broke his thoughts. “Do you still want to look for him?”

Patrick whirled around only to discover that Kevin’s room had disappeared behind him, and the king stood there with a floating clock by his side.

“I would tell you to turn back,” the man said, smirking, “but I have a feeling that you’re too stubborn to give up now.”

“I can’t. Don’t you understand that I can’t?”

“What a pity.”

Patrick turned back to gaze upon the labyrinth. “It doesn’t look _that_ far…”

“It’s further than you think, and time is short,” the king told him, pointing to the clock as Patrick faced him again. “You’ll have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth before your older brother becomes one of us forever. It’s such a pity, but…you brought this on yourself. What do the humans say, ‘you made your bed, now lie in it’?”

He opened his mouth to retort, but before Patrick could say anything, the king faded until he disappeared altogether. What an asshole.

But Patrick was not athletic in the _least_ and certainly had no time to waste if he was to solve this entire maze on foot, so he didn’t dwell on what had just happened – or _anything_ that had happened since Kevin came home the previous day – and instead began his trek down to the entrance of the labyrinth. The sun was warm and already Patrick felt uncomfortable in his jean jacket, but taking it off was out of the question. Who knew if he would even get it back? Could real items be left within a dream? He still wasn’t certain that he wasn’t dreaming.

Upon reaching the entrance, he noticed that he wasn’t alone. There was a man – a _boy_ , he didn’t look that much older than Patrick, if even at all – with a spray bottle walking around with both a determined and bored expression on his face. He squirted his bottle at something small in the air, and Patrick realized that there were… _fairies_ flying around him.

And that boy had just _sprayed_ one, causing it to fall to the ground.

“What the fuck did it do you?” Patrick asked. The boy ignored him, and Patrick reached down to pick up the injured creature before—“Ow! It bit me!”

Now the boy _did_ turn to face him. “Well, what did you expect fairies to do?”

Patrick ignored his tone. He needed help getting into the labyrinth and while he was quick to temper, he knew rationally that if he wanted someone to help him, he should probably not piss them off immediately. Plus, this guy was going around and spraying fairies with what looked like some sort of pesticide, so he had a feeling that the guy would not hesitate to turn the bottle on Patrick. The last thing he needed today, after already getting his brother kidnapped and himself transported into a mythical desert world, was to discover that the concoction was fatal to humans.

“Do you know where the door to the labyrinth is?” Patrick asked.

The boy shrugged. “Maybe,” he responded before continuing to spray fairies with his deadly little bottle. That wasn’t helpful at all. Patrick rolled his eyes and pressed further. “Well, where is it?”

“Where is what?”

This was getting a little ridiculous. “The door!”

“What door?”

Patrick rolled his eyes. This curly-haired jerk was certainly testing the patience that Patrick had basically already lost. “It’s hopeless asking you anything, isn’t it?”

The boy shrugged again. “Not if you ask the right questions.”

At this rate, Patrick was going to spend all thirteen of his hours arguing with this unconcerned fairy extinguisher. What the hell constituted “the right questions” anyway? How was he supposed to know what the right questions were? It’s not like he had ever been to this underground world before. In fact, it’s not like this underground world had even _existed_ before he began writing his song, which meant that _Patrick_ should inevitably be able to make the rules. And yet, here he was, getting nowhere.

“Ummm,” he began, thinking about how to phrase what he wanted to ask. Maybe direct was the way to go. “How do I get into the labyrinth?”

“Now _that’s_ more like it!” the boy exclaimed, a grin appearing on his face for the first time. There was a sudden noise and Patrick noticed that a giant door in the wall of the labyrinth had begun to open. The boy extended a finger in the direction of the door. “You get in through there. But, uhh,” the grin faded and he hesitated a moment, “you aren’t actually going _in there_ , are you?”

“I have to. That asshole took my brother.”

Patrick entered the labyrinth and looked around. There were only two directions in which he could go, and they both looked the same.

Great.

“Which way would you go?” he asked the boy, who had followed him apprehensively.

“Me? Neither. I’m not going in there. Even if you get to the center of the labyrinth, you’re not gonna get back out again.”

And really, that was what Patrick had been afraid of from the moment the king had disappeared: that he would not be able to go home again even if he _did_ solve the labyrinth. This boy was from this world, he would understand better what Patrick was facing and, well, that statement didn’t bode well for Patrick. However, there was no way that Patrick could just _give up_ when he had to save his brother. He got Kevin into this mess, and while Kevin was an asshole who deserved to learn his lesson for his treatment of Patrick, there were more humane ways than letting him get kidnapped and spending eternity in a make-believe world.

He wouldn’t be deterred. “That’s your opinion.”

The boy rolled his eyes and muttered, “it’s a lot better than yours.”

It probably was since, as Patrick had already realized, the boy knew this world. But just as the king had indicated, Patrick _was_ stubborn. He started this and he was going to finish it, and if this boy wasn’t gonna help him, then well, he was going to do it alone. He’d much prefer a guide, but Patrick was seventeen and he didn’t need someone to hold his hand.

“Thanks for nothing, asshole.” He wasn’t going to worry about pissing off the boy now that he had already gotten into the labyrinth.

“It’s _Joe_ , and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The boy – Joe – stalked back out of the labyrinth and the giant doors closed behind him with a huge thud. This was it, Patrick was on his own.

He looked back and forth in each direction. There was nothing to suggest one direction over the other, so Patrick turned to the right and began to walk before he could convince himself to turn around and try the other way. If he spent the entire thirteen hours being indecisive about which way to go, he was never going to make it to the castle. And that was right: he only had thirteen hours in which to solve the damn maze. Figuring that he better pick up the pace, Patrick sped up into a jog that continued into a run.

Patrick kept running until he ran out of breath. He was not fit enough for this shit.

“What do they mean ‘labyrinth’?” he wondered aloud, voice filled with frustration. “There’s no turns or anything! It just goes on and on.”

But what if…

Maybe it didn’t. Maybe that was part of the illusion.

In any case, Patrick couldn’t just stand there aimlessly if he didn’t want to run out of time, so he moved into a jog again and kept going. Eventually he would have to find something, right? Perhaps the start of the labyrinth was meant to discourage people from continuing and it would just get easier the further in he got. So, Patrick would just have to keep going until he did find himself an opening or a turn somewhere.

Though it wasn’t long before he began to feel discouraged himself, because there _still_ didn’t appear to be anything anywhere.

Patrick groaned and threw himself up against a wall to rest before—

“Hello!”

His eyes flew open only seconds after closing them and he looked around. There was nobody else there. He was clearly losing his mind. But just before his eyes slipped closed again, he noticed something in front of him.

It was…a tiny person. Waving.

Patrick crossed the path to the other wall and crouched down, facing the little figure. It appeared to be a tiny man with wild curly blonde hair and a goofy grin on his face. This wasn’t a fairy, was it? Patrick didn’t notice any wings, but after being bit already once today, he was hesitant to let it happen again. “Did you just say hello?” he asked.

“Yep!”

“Oh.” At least Patrick wasn’t losing his mind, though that was debatable considering where he was in the first place. “What _are_ you?”

“I’m Sisky Business.”

That…didn’t answer anything, but okay. Patrick didn’t have the time to question it further. “Do you know how to solve the labyrinth?” he asked. “I can’t find any turns or openings anywhere and I need to reach my brother and I’m running out of time and…” Trailing off, he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.

But the little man’s smile didn’t falter. “You’re just not looking in the right places. This place is full of openings, you just gotta find ’em.”

“Well, where are they?”

“There’s one right in front of you,” the Sisky guy told him, pointing across the way. Patrick was very confused.

“But there isn’t an opening.”

“Yeah there is! Just try walking through it, you’ll see what I mean.”

Patrick conceded that, like Joe, Sisky Business probably knew better what he was talking about than Patrick. Standing back up, he crossed the path again and placed his hands up to the wall. He twisted his head to look back at Sisky, who nodded in encouragement. Turning back toward the wall, Patrick pushed forward and…it opened. Where there was previously a wall beneath his hands was air, and there were another two paths on either side of him. Huh. Maybe he would need to use his imagination if he was going to solve his labyrinth — his imagination created this world in the first place, so maybe that was the key.

“Wait, hang on!” Sisky called as Patrick turned down the left path. Patrick stepped back to take a look at the little man. “Don’t go that way!”

“What?”

“ _Never_ go that way!”

“Oh,” Patrick said dumbly. Then he smiled and turned the other way, yelling “thanks!” before continuing down the right path. If he had stayed back for even a moment, he would have heard the little man say to himself, “silly boy. If he’d kept on going that way, he’d have gone straight to the castle.”

* * *

Why was his throne room always so _loud?_ Couldn’t these people see that he had something very important to do?

He sat across his throne looking thoughtful. No, perhaps they couldn’t see that he had something very important to do because he wasn’t actually doing anything. Not visibly, anyway. Pete was thinking about the boy running the labyrinth — the adorable boy who rejected the offer of his dreams to race through a strange new land for the older brother that didn’t appreciate him. There was no question about it, the boy had a certain fire in him that Pete was drawn to, like a moth to a flame. He couldn’t get the boy out of his head.

It didn’t help that the older brother in question sat in the center of the throne room, surrounded by Pete’s haphazard court.

Pete could feel the man’s eyes on him. “What do you want?” he asked, turning to face him and seeing that yes, he was indeed glaring at Pete. _Glaring_. What had Pete done to deserve that glare? All he did was his duty: any child – or adult, he supposed, in this case – who had been wished away to the goblins was under his direction.

Especially since there weren’t actually _goblins_.

Pete just called them that.

Because he was a little bit of an asshole. Just a little bit.

The man continued to glare at him. It might be a little intimidating if Pete was his brother, but seeing as Pete was an immortal fae king, the intimidation was lost on him. There was so much more he could do to Kevin than the man could do to him. And fuck, did Pete ever _want_ to, because he should not get away with the way he had treated his younger brother. That gorgeous boy deserved the whole world, like Pete had tried to offer him. He did not deserve to have this cretin as kin, but Pete would resist the urge to flay him.

He wasn’t _that_ much of a monster.

At least not when Patrick still had the chance to recover him.

Pete looked down again at the offending man. “I don’t know what you’re waiting for, I’m not going to sing and dance for you. I could play you a shitty bass line, but even I’m not so cruel as to subject you to that. But,” he added, looking to the clock, “only nine hours and twenty-three minutes to go until I can do whatever I want to you.”

* * *

Patrick was really glad that he’d had a Sharpie in his jacket pocket, because eventually the bright idea came to him to draw arrows on the ground. That way he’d remember where he had already been, in case he got turned around.

It was a great idea. A fantastic idea. Until it wasn’t, because he realized that his arrows were being turned around.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed. “Someone’s been changing my marks! That’s so not fair.”

“You’re right,” came a sudden voice.

Patrick turned around to find two young guards standing behind him, both holding up shields to protect themselves from whoever might stumble upon them. Both had practical _baby faces_ and Patrick could swear they had to be younger than him, but well, he wasn’t sure how aging worked in this world. Perhaps they were centuries old – could they even be centuries old in a world Patrick only made up this week? – and only _looked_ about fifteen. “But,” the shorter of the two guards said, the same voice as before, “that’s only half of it.”

He was pretty sure this had been a dead end only a moment ago, and voiced as much. The taller guard pointed out that the dead end was, in fact, _behind_ him, and after glancing back to see that there was indeed a wall right where he came from, Patrick groaned.

“It keeps changing! What am I supposed to do?” he asked no one in particular.

“Well,” the shorter guard began, gesturing behind the two of them, “the only way out of here is to try one of these doors.”

The taller guard nodded, and Patrick took note of his curious makeup. “One of the doors leads to the center of the labyrinth,” he explained, “and the other leads to certain death.” The two guards made ominous sounds at the mention of death. Patrick resisted rolling his eyes because while the idea seemed a little ridiculous and the guards were far too cavalier for something as serious as _death_ , he was nonetheless set on edge.

It was possible that he could actually _die_ in this world, and well, that was…a little frightening.

“Well, which one is which?” he asked.

The shorter one balked. “You can’t ask both of us!” he exclaimed. “You can only ask one of us!”

“Yes,” the taller guard confirmed, “it’s the rules. But I should warn you: one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies.” And to indicate which role he played in that statement, he gestured toward the shorter guard, who immediately picked it up.

“I do not! I tell the truth.”

“Oh, what a lie,” the taller guard said, looking in the opposite direction. The shorter one did not appear to like this and before Patrick could even comprehend what was happening, an argument had broken out. God, he didn’t have _time_ for this, couldn’t they see that he was in a hurry? Huffing, Patrick approached the shorter one — he was still taller than Patrick, but at least Patrick wouldn’t feel as though he was being _towered over_ when attempting to get information. What’s that just the story of his life?

“Okay, answer yes or no,” he instructed the guard. “Would he—” Patrick pointed toward the other guard, “—tell me that this door leads to the castle?”

He appeared to think over it a moment. “Uhh…yes.”

“Then…the other door must lead to the castle and this door must lead to certain death,” Patrick concluded.

“How do you know he’s telling the truth?”

“Because then _you_ wouldn’t be,” Patrick explained. “So, if you told me that he say yes, then I know the answer would be no.”

“But I could be telling the truth!”

“But then _he_ wouldn’t be, so if you told me that he’d say yes, I know the answer would still be no.”

The guards looked just as confused as Patrick had been before, but for once, Patrick actually felt confident about this whole thing. It seemed that he was finally beginning to understand how the labyrinth worked. “It’s right,” he told them, interrupting their questions to one another about whether Patrick was correct. “I figured it out. I couldn’t do it before, but I think I’m getting smarter. This is a piece of ca—”

Patrick, who had just opened the door that he was _certain_ led to the castle, felt the ground open up beneath him and the air rush from his lungs as he plunged into the darkness.

He could feel something.

Were those… _hands?_ Yes, that’s what he could feel. Those were definitely hands grabbing him.

And some of them were definitely being a little handsy.

“Stop it!” he cried. Patrick wasn’t quite sure he expected them to _listen_ to him – nothing in this damn maze seemed to listen to him – but he was pleasantly (if only mildly) surprised when the hands, which had been grabbing him in various places, stopped and simply…held him. Well, that was a relief, at least — Patrick did not want to plunge to his death just because he asked a bunch of strangers in a hole to stop molesting him.

But now that he didn’t have to worry about cracking open his skull upon hitting the bottom, he had to find a way back out. “Help!” he yelled.

“What do you mean ‘help’?”

Glancing around, Patrick noticed that the hands were…forming a face. With their hands. Well, he supposed that answered the question of whether the hands were attached to actual bodies. Clearly, they didn’t have actual heads with mouths.

“We are helping,” another set forming another face said. A third set formed another face just above the second. “We’re helping hands,” they informed him.

Patrick felt fingers pinching his thigh. “You’re _hurting_.”

“Would you like us to let go?”

He couldn’t help the scream that came from him as he felt the hands suddenly release their grip and his body go hurling downward again. It only lasted for a second before they grabbed onto Patrick again, but it was enough that Patrick was extremely grateful. Maybe he had to make sacrifices in order to survive, take the good with the bad — the lesser of two evils, right? Pinched thighs were much preferable to a cracked skull. “No!” he breathed out.

Another face of hands formed beside him. “Which way do you want to go?” they asked.

“Oh, uhhh…”

Which way _did_ he want to go? Up didn’t exactly seem like a good idea, considering he might end up in another hole just like this one. But what would he find at the bottom of the hole if he chose to go down? For all he knew, there were spikes at the bottom and the “certain death” facing him was impalement. And if he got back to the top, perhaps he could go back through the door and choose the _other_ door this time. If the doors were even still there, since Patrick had no illusions about the changing nature of this labyrinth anymore.

He supposed he could at least find out what was at the bottom. What was the worst that could happen? “Since I’m pointed that way,” he answered, “I might as well go down.”

“Down?!”

“He chose _down_?!” 

The outbursts from the hands around him made Patrick uneasy. “Was that wrong?”

“Too late now,” a last face told him as the hands propelled him quickly toward the bottom of the dark tunnel, where he was dropped abruptly on a hard floor. Well, at least he hadn’t been impaled. The sound of something shutting above him didn’t ease his anxiety, though, as he came to the realization that wherever he was, Patrick was _trapped_.

* * *

Pete’s brows furrowed as he looked into his crystal. “He’s in the oubliette,” he muttered to himself. He had been watching the boy’s progress, and quite frankly, he was surprised that the boy had gotten as far as he had. Pete had expected the boy to put up quite a fight – the stubbornness was obvious – but the labyrinth was a death trap to even those who dwelled within its walls. How had a human boy managed to get this far?

Snickering broke out around him, because of course his haphazard court had been watching along with him. He hadn’t forbidden them, but the laughter was a little distracting as he sat ruminating over the boy. “Quiet!” he demanded.

Frank and Gerard both took an additional moment to shut their traps. Damn those _goblins_.

“He never should have gotten as far as the oubliette,” Pete continued. “He should have given up by now.”

Mikey rolled his eyes at his king. “He’ll never give up.”

“Oh, will he?” Pete asked. “Joe’s about to lead him back to the beginning. He’ll soon give up when he realizes he has to start all over again. The kid has got no patience, and the sooner I can break him, the sooner he will be _mine_. And god, the things I would do to that perfect ass as soon as it is in my possession…”

At that moment, Pete noticed Kevin – still sitting in the center of the room – glance up. “Can you stop objectifying my baby brother?”

Pete ignored him.

Patrick _would_ be his. He wasn’t letting him slip away that easily.

* * *

There was a noise. Patrick still couldn’t see anything, but there was the distinct sound of…were those footsteps? If someone was able to enter the hole through another entrance than the one in the ceiling, surely there must be an exit somewhere.

“Who’s there?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from wavering.

“Me.”

He knew that voice. That was the fairy extinguisher — Joe, that was his name. Patrick admitted to himself that he was a little relieved, because while it wasn’t someone he necessarily _trusted_ , it was someone he already knew. However, considering how helpful Joe had been and how well he seemed to regard Patrick – both being low on the scale, if there was one – it was probably not in Patrick’s best interests to show how relieved he was to see him. “Oh,” he responded simply, “it’s _you_.”

“Yes, well, I figured you’d get into trouble as soon as I met you, so I’ve come to give you a hand,” the other boy explained, lighting a lantern on the wall. Patrick looked around at the little room – and “little” was no understatement – he had been trapped in.

Joe watched his movement. “I’m sure you’ve noticed there aren’t any doors, only the hole.”

Patrick continued to look around because Joe couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. How had he even entered the room?

“This is an oubliette,” the boy continued. “The labyrinth’s full of ’em.”

“Really, I didn’t know that,” Patrick deadpanned.

“Oh, don’t sound so smart! You don’t even know what an oubliette is! Well, I’ll tell you — it’s a place to put people to _forget about them_. So, you’re gonna want to get out of here as soon as possible because Pete…well, if he wants to forget you then it doesn’t bode well for you, that’s for sure.”

“Pete?”

“The king,” Joe said simply.

Patrick hadn’t known the king even had a name, but _Pete_ …he would never have guessed that was his name. It sounded too human, too…normal.

“But,” Joe interrupted his thoughts, “it just so happens I know a shortcut out of the labyrinth.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I’ve come this far, I can’t give up now,” Patrick told him. He didn’t want to give Joe any leverage in this situation, but if he had to plead, he would. There was no way he was going to get Kevin back while sitting in a forgotten hole, but he wasn’t going to get Kevin back by giving up and leaving either. No, Patrick needed to get out of the hole and to the castle, and whether he liked it or not, he needed Joe’s help. He began rummaging around in the pockets of his jean jacket for something – _anything_ – he could use as a bargaining tool. The only thing he could find, besides the Sharpie he had been using earlier, was a guitar pick.

Well, that would have to do.

Holding it up, Patrick said, “if you take me to the center of the labyrinth, or at least as close as you can, I’ll give you this.”

“What is it?” Joe looked a little confused.

“A guitar pick.”

“Yeah, but what’s it _made_ of?”

That was an odd question, but this was an odd place to Patrick let it brush over him. “Plastic,” he said, shrugging. It wasn’t anything special.

Joe was eying the guitar pick intently. Patrick swayed his hand gently, almost not moving it at all, and watched as the other boy’s eyes followed the little piece of plastic. He could feel the look on his face growing smug as his plan was beginning to work. Finally, Joe relented. “Okay, if you give me that _pick_ thing, I’ll take you as close to the center as I can. But,” he held up a finger, “after that you’re on your own, alright?”

Patrick nodded. That was better than he expected, so he wasn’t going to complain.

The other boy grabbed the guitar pick from Patrick’s hand, making excited comments to himself about plastic – what was even so special about plastic? Patrick supposed maybe there was none in this mythical world – as he began rummaging around on the floor. Picking up what appeared to be a door from the dusty floor, Joe placed it on the wall.

“Here we go,” he remarked, opening it. Patrick winced at the sound of all the pots and pans crashing to the floor.

“Whoops, wrong side.”

Joe closed the door again before opening it in the opposite direction. This time, it opened to a lighted path — an _exit_. He gestured for Patrick to follow as he ducked through it and led the shorter boy into a passage with vines crawling down the walls. Although Patrick was glad to be out of the hole, he couldn’t help but feel this was a bad idea when stone columns along the path announced warnings to turn back and beware. “False alarms,” Joe called them, explaining that they were most commonly found when you were actually on the right path. Patrick supposed that made sense, especially if the king – _Pete_ – didn’t want him to succeed.

“Oh no you’re not,” one column interjected as Joe made his explanation.

“Shut it, you.”

If a piece of stone could look sour, Patrick imagined that this one was doing exactly that. “I’m just trying to do my job,” it muttered.

As the two continued along the path, another column attempted to give his warning, but Joe cut it off before it could even finish his sentence. “Please,” the column pleaded, “I haven’t said it in such a long time.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Fine, but don’t expect a big reaction.”

“Oh, no, of course not.” The column cleared its throat — did it even have a throat? “Beware, for the path you will take will lead to certain destruction.”

The stone thanked them for letting it say its piece, but neither Patrick nor Joe were paying attention, because a crystal had gone rolling across the ground by their feet. They shared an apprehensive look — they knew what a crystal usually meant, and it could be nothing good for them. Patrick followed the crystal to where it led as Joe, who looked as though he wanted to be literally anywhere else than with Patrick at that moment, followed behind him. At least Joe hadn’t abandoned him yet.

The crystal rolled right up to a beaked creature in a cloak and practically _jumped_ into the box the creature held. “Ahh, what have we here?”

“N-nothing,” Joe stuttered.

“Nothing?” the creature asked. “Nothing?” Its voice became deeper this time, as it stood and removed its cloak, revealing none other than Pete beneath it. Pete looked absolutely _furious_ as he asked again, “nothing, tra la la?”

God, it had to be a crime for someone to have such an alluring angry face. Patrick fought the desire to be dominated by him.

Wait, what?

“Joe, can it be that you’re helping this boy?”

“H-helping, your grace?” Joe squeaked. “In what sense?”

Pete clearly did not have the patience to deal with this, Patrick could see as much on his face. He could almost agree with the sentiment – he surely didn’t have the patience to deal with so much of this damn labyrinth, including even Joe when he first met him – but it would probably be a bad thing to relate to the villain, so Patrick tried to reign in those thoughts. This was the guy who kidnapped his older brother and was making Patrick journey to a possible death just to retrieve Kevin, so he should _not_ be finding any common ground with him.

“In the sense that you’re leading him toward the castle!”

“No, no,” Joe protested, “I was taking him back to the beginning, your majesty. I just wanted him to trust me first—”

“Then what’s that?”

Pete snapped his fingers and the guitar pick, which Joe had balled up in his first, flew into the king’s hand. Joe noticeably paled but did not give in, stuttering, “t-that? Oh, I just f-found that, not even sure what it is, really, b-but I promise—”

“Joe,” the king warned, “if I thought for one second that you were betraying me, I would dip you headfirst into the bog of eternal stench.” And then Joe did something that Patrick would never have anticipated.

He actually dropped to his knees and _begged_.

“No, your majesty!” he pleaded. “Not the bog of eternal stench!”

Patrick had no idea what the bog eternal stench was, but he could deduce from the name that it was probably a bog…that made you smell rancidly…for all eternity. Like, come on, that was probably the most straightforward thing he had heard in the labyrinth so far. Though, considering how unpredictable this place could be, Patrick wouldn’t have been surprised if the bog of eternal stench happened to be a threatening name for like…a bright, summer valley. He doubted, however, that Joe would be so scared of a grassy knoll.

“Oh _yes_ ,” Pete spat, kicking the desperate boy aside – damn, that had to hurt – as he instead approached Patrick. “And you, Patrick,” he began, the look on his face turning absolutely _predatory_ as he leaned in close. Patrick could feel the man’s breath on his face. “How are you enjoying my labyrinth?”

Patrick should be scared. Patrick _was_ scared. Patrick was also a little turned on.

Oops.

Raising his chin to meet Pete’s gaze, he tried to present himself confidently and hoped it was working as he responded, “it’s a piece of cake.”

“Really?” Pete asked. “How about upping the stakes then?”

A floating clock appeared out of nowhere, and Pete gestured at it with a single finger, spinning it around as the hands on the clock spun faster and faster. He was speeding up time. Pete was _taking away_ Patrick’s time.

“That’s not fair!” Patrick blurted out before he could stop himself.

Pete smirked at him. “You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is.” He stepped away from Patrick. “So, the labyrinth is a piece of cake, is it? Then let’s see how you deal with _this_ little slice.”

Patrick watched as the king revealed a crystal in his hand and tossed it down the dark tunnel. He was afraid to look, especially once he began to hear noises come from the darkness. It sounded like something was moving, and it sounded…sharp. Patrick could swear that he heard knives brandishing against each other, but Pete wouldn’t really do that, would he? Joe’s terrified exclamation of, “the cleaners!” seemed to suggest that Pete would do exactly that. As the other boy turned and ran in the opposite direction, Patrick quickly followed.

Patrick wasn’t sure where to run or for how long, but while he hadn’t quite trusted Joe before, he trusted now that Joe knew where to go. And so, when Joe tripped and Patrick _could_ have kept going to save himself and not wasted any more of his precious time, he stopped quickly to help the other boy. He didn’t take it personally when Joe didn’t thank him — they were literally running for their lives, there would be plenty of time for that later.

Until they reached an iron gate, which appeared to be locked. Both Patrick and Joe pulled and pushed and rattled it, attempting to open it, but the gate wouldn’t budge. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a “later” after all. Patrick was going to _die_ here.

Joe groaned and glared at Patrick. “The cleaners? The bog of stench? You _sure_ got his attention!”

There had to be another way out, there just _had_ to be. Patrick absolutely refused to die here, being chopped to bits in a dark tunnel after being leered at by the probably immortal, _definitely_ magical evil king who kidnapped his brother.

How was this his life?

Maybe he really _was_ dreaming this whole thing.

But then it came to him: imagination. He told himself earlier in his journey that he would have to use his imagination to manipulate the labyrinth. The answer, therefore, was that the only way to get out of this was to _imagine_ a way out. So, Patrick started pushing on the wall beside him.

Joe didn’t even question him, instead joining Patrick and helped push on the wall. The cleaners were getting closer – and oh god, what a gruesome death that would make if they didn’t hurry the fuck up – so Patrick shook as he and Joe pushed more fervently, throwing almost all of his weight into it. Suddenly, Patrick found himself falling forward as the wall collapsed. He would have thought it would disappear, like the one he encountered at the beginning of the labyrinth, but that didn’t matter. He was safe.

He was _alive_.

Patrick glanced behind him as the cleaners drove by and observed that the large machine was being operated by a man with short curly hair and a lot of tattoos. When he turned forward again to see where he and Joe had ended up, he noticed the other boy was already on his feet and looking around at the floor. “Aha!” he remarked when he finally looked up. Patrick followed his gaze to where a ladder hung above them. “A ladder! Perfect.”

He reached up to grab the bottom step of the ladder and glanced back at Patrick. “Follow me.”

“No way,” Patrick replied, shaking his head. “How can I trust you now that I know you were taking me back to the beginning of the labyrinth?”

“Oh, I just told _him_ that to throw him off. Don’t worry.”

But Patrick wasn’t giving in that quickly. “Joe, how can I believe anything you say?”

The other boy, who was already halfway up the ladder, stopped and looked back down at the shorter boy. It was another moment before he spoke. “Let me put it this way,” Joe began. “What choice have you got?”

Patrick looked around. There was nothing else besides the ladder.

Damn, the kid had a point.

Conceding, Patrick reached up on his tip-toes to grab onto the ladder. Heaving himself up was a bit of a chore and, not for the first time that day, he felt as though he was definitely not in enough shape to be doing this. If he had known that someday he was going to have to run for his life through a mythical underground labyrinth to retrieve the asshole older brother that he wished away to the evil goblin king in the first place, Patrick might have put a little more effort into his gym classes at school.

“See, you have to understand my position,” Joe said randomly. “I’m a coward and Pete scares me.”

“What kind of position is that?” Patrick asked.

“No position, that’s my point. And _you_ wouldn’t be so brave either if you smelled the bog of eternal stench. It’s…” The other boy shuddered as he continued climbing, as though that was a clear enough description of the bog.

“Is that all that it does? Smell?”

“Oh, believe me, that’s enough. But the worst thing is that if you even put so much as a _toe_ in the bog of stench, you’ll smell bad for the rest of your life. It _never_ washes off.”

Patrick was saved from thinking of another response when Joe reached the top of the ladder and pushed something out of the ceiling to reveal an exit. He climbed out and Patrick climbed faster to follow, noticing that they had climbed out of a large pot. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Patrick took in their surroundings. Yet another place with no signs or markers, no people, and nothing to help Patrick figure out where he was going. At least he had Joe…who happened to be stalking away toward an opening to another path.

“That’s it, you’re on your own now,” Joe told him, not even bothering to turn around and face Patrick as he said it.

Patrick balked. “Excuse me, what?!”

“Look, I said I would take you as far as I could and then you’re on your own, you knew this was the deal. So, forgive me, but this is just about as close as I’d like to get to Pete and his castle and I’ll be going back to my actual _job_ now, thanks.”

“You cheat!” Patrick exclaimed. “You nasty little cheat!”

Joe actually turned this time and raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re calling _me_ little? Have you looked at yourself lately?”

Okay, Patrick _knew_ he was short. He stopped growing a couple years earlier and had accepted that he probably wasn’t going to have any more growth spurts, that this was it. But it was a whole different story when someone else made fun of his height, because there were so many other things they could make fun of Patrick for – like getting himself in _this_ situation in the first place! – but going for his height was a cheap shot. Reactively, Patrick stomped up to the other boy and, before Joe could figure out what Patrick was doing and move, grabbed the little bag that the curly-haired boy wore on his belt.

“Hey, wait! Those are my jewels! I need them to barter!”

Patrick grinned. “Nuh huh.”

“Come on, man. Have a heart, that’s my _livelihood_ you’ve got there,” the other boy pleaded. Frankly, Patrick wasn’t sure why Joe didn’t just _try_ to get them back. It’s not like Patrick was taller or faster than him, so Joe would have no problem retrieving the little bag if he actually made an attempt to grab them.

But he didn’t.

Maybe that was an indication that he didn’t _want_ to fuck with Patrick.

And damn, Patrick felt a little bad about that, so he sighed and tossed the bag back to the other boy. Joe caught the jewels but made no move to leave.

Pressing his luck, Patrick pointed out, “so there’s the castle. Which way should we try?”

Joe was grumbling about how those jewels were his rightful property and it wasn’t fair for Patrick to take them. Patrick bit back a retort about how that’s the way it is, because he didn’t want to be like Pete — he didn’t want to encourage the unfairness of the situation, he wanted to change the game so that it _was_ fair. He was pulled from his thoughts when he noticed a tall boy – a _really_ tall boy, even taller than Joe (who was admittedly probably just about average height, but tall to Patrick) – with long hair and a tall bird hat came around the corner. He paid neither of them attention as he walked past the two boys to take a seat in the stone chair beside the pot from which they emerged only minutes earlier.

“Excuse me?” Patrick asked, approaching him. “Can you help me?”

The boy, whose eyes had been closed after he sat down, opened them and looked at Patrick curiously. “Oh, a young boy!” He was one to talk. Almost every person in this labyrinth looked younger than Patrick.

“Please,” Patrick began, “can you tell…that is, my friend and I have to get to the castle at the center of the labyrinth, do you know the way?”

“Oh yes, you want to get to the castle, do you?”

Suddenly, the bird atop the tall hat opened its mouth and squawked, catching Patrick completely off guard. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have guessed that the bird was fake, but he should have known by this point not to assume he knew _anything_ about the inner workings of the labyrinth. “How’s that for brain power, huh?” the bird asked, its voice being surprisingly deeper than Patrick would assume for a bird. And was that an Australian accent?

Why should Patrick be surprised? This was a make-believe world. Everyone else he had met so far had an American accent, but it didn’t make them Americans.

“Be quiet!” the boy hissed up above his forehead.

“Oh, nuts.”

Turning his gaze back on Patrick, the boy began again. “Well, young sir, sometimes the way forward…is also the way back.”

What? That didn’t make any sense.

The bird seemed to agree. “Would you listen to this load of shit?”

Patrick resisted the urge to roll his eyes as an argument broke out between the boy and his hat. He did _not_ have time for this. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joe looking equally as uncomfortable. Not that Joe really cared about the time limit – he wasn’t the one hard pressed with a deadline to reach the castle – but Patrick was sure he wanted to be literally anywhere else, because well, Patrick sure did.

Finally, the argument seemed to quiet down and the boy faced Patrick again. “Quite often, young man, it seems we’re not getting very far when in fact…”

“We are,” the bird chirped.

The boy glared up above his forehead again. “We _are_.”

“Well, _I’m_ certainly not getting anywhere at the moment,” Patrick said, this time giving into the urge to roll his eyes. Come on, how was this advice supposed to help him reach the castle? He asked for a way there, not an introduction to philosophy course.

His irritation increased when he heard a snore and realized that the boy had dozed off right in the middle of their conversation. The bird looked down.

“I think that’s your lot,” it concluded. “Please leave a contribution in the little box.”

A little box – just as described – appeared in the sleeping boy’s outstretched hand. The bird must have had some control over the body, unless the boy was faking his sleep to get out of the conversation. Patrick wouldn’t have put it past him — pretty much every person he had met in the labyrinth so far, with the exception of little Sisky Business at the beginning, had been rather rude to him. However, Joe had certainly grown on him and he would be willing to call the curly-haired boy his friend. Hell, he already had.

Oh, that’s right, he had a contribution to leave.

But what did Patrick even own? He had nothing on him but a Sharpie since he gave his guitar pick to Joe.

_Joe_.

He turned to the other boy, who immediately caught him eyeing the little bag of jewels. “Oh, no you don’t,” he warned. “Those are mine.” Patrick raised his hands in defense and tried to think of anything else that he could give as a contribution. He padded down his pockets again and again, as though something was randomly going to appear that hadn’t been there before. That _was_ par for the course in the labyrinth, after all.

Nope, it seemed like it was going to have to be the Sharpie. He placed it in the box, which the sleeping boy then drew back into his cloak.

Seeing no point to continue wasting more time, Patrick turned toward the nearest path. It took another moment for Joe to move his feet and catch up with Patrick, thoughtfully quiet before finally asking, “did you mean what you said back there, about us being friends?”

“Yes,” Patrick confirmed. “You may not be _much_ of one, but you’re the only one I’ve got here.”

“Friends.” Joe repeated the word under his breath a couple times, trying to get used to the feeling of it in his mouth. “I like that.”

There was silence as the two walked together, content in their companionship, before a loud roar on the other side of the wall made them jump. “What was that?!” Patrick asked, his heart beating about a million miles per hour. Or…whatever the system used in this world for distance and time. It didn’t matter, his heart was just beating _fast_.

Joe shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m not waiting around to find out.” The boy turned and made to run, but Patrick was quick to grab his arm.

“Hey, are you my friend or not?”

“Not!”

The curly-haired boy wiggled free from Patrick’s grasp and ran in the opposite direction. Patrick almost considered following him, but he knew that the direction Joe cowered to was not the way to the castle. Even in a labyrinth where everything was twisting and turning and changing around him, Patrick knew that it wouldn’t suddenly become the right path. Plus, he had survived so much by now — perhaps Patrick had a guardian angel looking over him or, at the very least, some crazy good luck. Things weren’t always as they seemed in this place, so who knew? A roar could be a good thing.

Peering around the corner – keeping his distance just in case it _was_ dangerous – Patrick saw a man tied upside down by his ankles. Around him was a group of three other men holding sticks topped with small creatures that had razor sharp teeth, and they used these makeshift weapons to attack and taunt the tied man.

Patrick didn’t know whether the man had done something bad to deserve that, but he didn’t think _anyone_ deserved that treatment, good or bad.

Plus, the taunting seemed a little mean. These seemed like _Pete’s_ kind of men.

“If only I had something to throw…”

And then suddenly—

A rock.

Where had that come from?

He reached down to grab the rock that had just rolled into his foot. Ducking behind the wall so that nobody would see him, Patrick tossed the rock, which hit one of the men right on the shoulder. The injured man yelped but Patrick didn’t see what happened next as he was hiding. His heart was still racing but this time it was with excitement — he wasn’t just going headfirst into danger, but this time he was _rescuing_ someone in the process. It was exhilarating to be the hero for once in his life.

Patrick peeked around the corner again. He noticed that the tied man was holding a pair of sticks and was whacking them against each other, not unlike a drummer. His long, ginger hair was swaying below his head in tangles.

Another couple of rocks rolled up to Patrick. How fortuitous.

He tossed another rock and this time hit one of the men right in the head, as suggested by the clang of the helmet. There were several clangs that followed, and Patrick risked a peek around the edge of the wall to discover that they had all crashed into one another. He watched as they turned their makeshift weapons on each other, screaming and battling and forgetting the man that they had hanging from a tree. Patrick kept his place as their battle took them away down another path, not willing to risk being seen in case they came after him instead.

As soon as they were out of sight, Patrick stepped out from his hiding place and approached the hanging man.

“Can you help me down?”

Wow, that was not at all what Patrick would have expected the man’s voice to sound like. But Patrick nodded, and reached up toward the rope holding his ankles. It was too high for his small stature, but it only took him a moment to find a large enough rock to place under the tree. Climbing up on it, Patrick tried again to let the ginger-haired man down. The rope wasn’t tied too tight and came lose fairly easily, resulting in the man falling headfirst onto the ground. He yelped, but as Patrick climbed back down to check on him, noticed that he appeared to be more or less uninjured. All things considered.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, crouching down to help the man up. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I think I’m fine.”

Once the man was standing, Patrick did a once over to make sure he was actually okay. It was the least he could do. Not seeing any serious injuries – not counting the bites and scratches from the attackers’ weapons – Patrick decided to introduce himself. “I’m Patrick.”

“Andy.”

“So, what did you do to piss those guys off?”

Andy waved his hand. “Nothing really,” he answered. “I made a comment about their hunting a wild beast and well, some folks don’t take too kindly to that.”

“Oh. I suppose not.”

“I could have taken them if I wanted, but I don’t like to fight, you know?”

Patrick could understand that well enough. He wasn’t one of those people – Patrick’s temper got him into some more trouble sometimes than it was worth – but far be it for him to criticize someone else for _not_ wanting to start any trouble. At the very least, he felt that he could probably trust Andy. He didn’t seem like the type of person who would be working for Pete — not a grabby hand or a coward like Joe.

“I need to get to the castle in the center of the labyrinth,” Patrick told him. “Do you know the way?”

Andy shook his head. “Sorry, no. I try to stay as far away from there as possible.”

He could understand that too. “I wonder if anyone knows how to get through the labyrinth,” Patrick wondered aloud. He saw Andy shrug. The man had probably never had to interact with anyone who _did_ know how to reach Pete’s castle. Patrick sighed and turned around to return to the path from which he came, only to discover that the entrance he had come through only minutes earlier was now replaced by two doors with rather large brass knockers on them. Great, more things were changing around him. He leaned in closer to look at the knockers. They had such peculiar faces, a ring through one’s nose and the other’s mouth—

“It’s very rude to stare!”

Patrick jumped back. That was _the knocker_ telling him off.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just wondering which door to use,” he explained, hoping that it wasn’t going to come off as insulting to _use_ the door knockers. “Hey, wait. Do you know where these doors lead?”

If the knocker could shrug, Patrick was sure that’s what it would have done. “Search me, we’re just the knockers.”

Well, that wasn’t particularly helpful.

Not that he was surprised.

He supposed that he would have to find out the hard way what was on the other side of the doors. “How do I get through?” he asked.

“Easy,” the knocker responded. “Just _knock_ and the door will open.”

That _did_ seem easy. Considering everything else he had encountered within the labyrinth, Patrick was skeptical — it seemed almost _too_ easy. He almost expected to have to argue with the knockers first just to gain entry. Of course, maybe the ease by which he could open the doors was not the concern, but what he might find on the other end. However, it seemed like this was his only chance if he wanted to continue onto the castle, so Patrick grabbed the ring in the other knocker’s mouth and gave it a heavy knock.

The door swung open. Patrick glanced at Andy to confirm wordlessly that the man still wanted to join him, and Andy nodded.

It was…a forest.

As the door swung shut behind them, cutting two of them off from their previous position in the labyrinth, Patrick took in the scenery. There were trees everywhere. The leaves of the bushes looked almost like glass, like the forest was ceramic. Maybe it was — he was too nervous to touch them and find out, in case it ended up being a trap.

“Come on,” he said to his new partner in crime. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

The clock ticked behind Pete as he sat on his throne, keeping an eye on the man still sitting in the center of the room. Patrick had less than five hours left to go, but it seemed that he was actually doing _well_. How was he making so much progress so quickly?

Pete needed to slow him down. Patrick couldn’t _win_.

Patrick couldn’t _leave_.

Kevin shifted and Pete turned to face him. “What do you think you’re doing? Quite the lively chap, aren’t you?” He was being sarcastic. The man had been the furthest from lively since Pete had first transported him to the throne room, acting as though showing any semblance of emotion besides anger and annoyance would result in his death. That seemed to be a bit of a family trait, considering Patrick’s insistence in standing up to Pete as well.

“What should I name you when you become mine forever?” he wondered aloud. “Certainly not Pete the Fourth, I am not saddling _you_ with a royal name.”

The man continued to glare at him.

He really needed to figure out what he would do to slow Patrick back down.

* * *

“This place gives me the creeps,” Andy commented as he and Patrick continued their trek through the glassy forest.

Patrick had to agree. It was both dark and light at the same time, glassy and wild simultaneously. There were no sounds of wildlife as they made their way down the brick path in the grass, and shouldn’t a forest have _something_ living in it? It almost felt like they were inside a crystal ball, which Patrick wouldn’t doubt for a second. The king _would_ keep them in a crystal to prevent Patrick from reaching the castle. It certainly wouldn’t be playing fair, but Pete had made it very clear that he didn’t care about being fair.

Andy was pretty good at looking unconcerned and composed, but Patrick noticed him twitch a few times. “Do you want me to hold your hand?” he asked.

It was a joke, but if Andy said _yes_ then Patrick supposed he would be willing.

Instead, Andy laughed. “Fuck off dude.”

It was reassuring to know that he had an actual friend here. This almost felt normal.

Except that the next time he turned around, Andy was…gone. He hadn’t heard the man leave, but he couldn’t see Andy anywhere. “Andy?” he called, hoping that maybe the man had just decided to fuck with him and hide behind a bush. It would be funny if Patrick actually had the time for _fun_. “Andy, come out you fucker!”

Still no response.

He really _was_ gone. Andy had totally disappeared.

Patrick hadn’t even _noticed_.

God, what a terrible friend he made. He was almost as bad as Joe, who had abandoned him. But what if Andy had abandoned him too? What if it wasn’t that Andy had disappeared accidentally, but intentionally? Maybe he meant for Patrick to get lost.

Patrick was desperate. “Joe?” he called. “Are you out there? Can you help me?”

* * *

He appeared just in time to hear the young boy exclaim aloud (even though it would be impossible for Patrick to hear him), “I’m coming Patrick!”

“Well, if it isn’t you.”

Pete smirked as the boy froze and turned back around, facing Pete with an almost white face and wide, scared eyes. He really did love instilling fear in his subjects, it made them so much more fun to interact with — not always compliant, but always a hoot when they had disobeyed Pete in some way. The boy was so skittish, Pete thought that he might benefit from using narcotics of some kind. But that was not why he was there, he could corrupt the youth of his kingdom another time when he wasn’t working with an impending deadline.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

Joe looked around momentarily before pointing to himself. “Me, your majesty?” he asked. “Well, you see, the human boy gave me the slip, but I was just about to get back to him and keep leading him back to the beginning of the labyrinth.”

“I see.” Pete crossed his arms. “For one moment I thought you were going to help him, but no. After my warnings that would be _stupid_ , wouldn’t it?”

“You bet it would. Me? Help him? After your warnings?” Joe gave a strangled laugh.

Pete looked at him thoughtfully.

“I have a better idea,” he announced. “Instead of leading him back toward the beginning of the labyrinth, I want you to give him,” producing a crystal, he turned it into a delicious looking fresh peach, “ _this_.”

“What is it?” Joe asked as he reached out hesitantly to take it.

“It’s a present.”

“It’s not gonna…hurt him, is it?”

Pete tilted his head. “Oh, now, why the concern?” He wasn’t stupid, he knew that the cowardly boy wanted to help Patrick. If Pete wasn’t Pete and Patrick wasn’t here for a reason, then maybe Pete would want to help him too. In another world, he might have been devoted to the adorable blonde boy in the glasses and trucker hat, but that’s not how it worked in Pete’s kingdom. He was to be feared, to be loved, and then _maybe_ he’d show some devotion, but he would still maintain control. Patrick would be _his_ , not the other way around.

“I just…” Joe began, clearly thinking over what he wanted to say. “I just don’t want to cause him any harm, that’s all.”

“I’m surprised at you, Joe. Losing your head over some boy,” Pete said.

It made Pete giddy on the inside to see the stuttering mess that Joe became in response to Pete’s insinuation. It was obvious that the boy had a little _crush_ on Patrick, who _wouldn’t_ have a crush on Patrick? And Joe was young, Pete wouldn’t have been surprised if he crushed on _Pete_ too, because he just had that sort of appeal with young people. He knew that Patrick was attracted to him too, which ultimately made his job a little easier.

“I haven’t lost my head!”

“You don’t honestly think he would want a scrawny, cowardly boy like you, do you?”

Of course not, because he would want _Pete_.

“He said…” Joe trailed off, looking embarrassed. Oh, this was _good_. Pete bore his teeth in a menacing grin. “What did he say? Did he call you his companion? His _friend_?” The way the young boy avoided Pete’s gaze confirmed it.

“Listen, Joe,” Pete began. “You _will_ give him that or I’ll toss you into the bog of stench before you can even blink.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically with still-wide eyes.

“And,” the king continued, “if he ever kisses you, I’ll turn you into a prince.”

It wasn’t possible for those eyes to get any wider but clearly Joe’s eyes hadn’t gotten the memo. It would be so easy for Pete to break him, but no. That’s not what he was there to do. He needed Joe to be an active participant in his quest for Patrick, and he needed to do it within the next four hours. Of course, Pete could just speed up time again to prevent Patrick from meeting his deadline, but it seemed dishonourable to do that when the boy wasn’t even there. Pete might not be a _fair_ opponent, but he did have honour.

“R-really?” Joe stuttered, still looking shocked.

Pete laughed. “Yes!” He gestured at the land around him with a maniacal grin on his face. “Prince of the land of stench!”

* * *

Patrick wasn’t sure how long it had been since Andy disappeared. He surely hadn’t run out of time yet – he had no doubt that Pete would come along to rub it in his face if that had been the case – but he worried that he was getting nowhere.

Shit, he was pretty sure he just heard a noise.

He whirled around. “Hello? Is there anyone there?” he called out into the dark. The last thing he wanted was to get murdered where his parents might never find him.

How tragic would that be?

Patrick couldn’t imagine what his mom would think if she returned home later that night and both Patrick and Kevin were gone. Would she worry? Or would she think they had gone out and not even notice until the following day? Patrick would be _dead_ in a make-believe world where his body would never be recovered, and Kevin…well, he had no idea what Pete’s plans were with Kevin, but he certainly didn’t want to find out. Patrick _had_ to get through the labyrinth in time and return home to his mother and Kevin’s goddamn party and his guitar, and then everything could go back to normal.

There was another sound. “What’s going on?”

All of a sudden, a man appeared in front of him, screaming in Patrick’s face. Patrick screamed in response and jumped back. The screaming man was wearing a…it looked like a fursuit. He was dressed as some sort of creature, maybe a fox? Did foxes exist in this underground world? The man was obviously crouching too, and Patrick was certain that if he stood up straight, he would probably _tower_ over Patrick.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“What do _I_ want?” the man repeated back to Patrick. “We just came out to have a good time!” And that’s when Patrick noticed that there were more of them. They were dancing around a fire, which provided a small glow in the otherwise dark forest.

Another tall man in the same outfit jumped to Patrick’s side and grabbed his head. “Hey! His head don’t come off!”

Patrick pushed him away. “Of course it doesn’t!”

“I know what we can do!”

A third suited person appeared beside Patrick, this one shorter than the rest and appearing to be female. Her dark hair framed her face around the hood of her fursuit and her smile looked far too mischievous for Patrick to trust. Reaching toward him, she continued, “we can take off his head!” Patrick practically leaped backward, almost losing his footing as he attempted to get away from the weird, underground furries.

And then one of them…took off its head. Oh no. Oh god. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. _Get away from me!_ ”

He scrambled away as quickly as he could.

The…they couldn’t possibly be human, could they? Not with removable heads. The _creatures_ continued to remove their own heads and tossed them about to one another, were showing off to Patrick just how fun it could be for him to join them. As if he wanted to decapitate himself and _bleed out_ in the forest.

They kept following him, though. They were relentless, laughing that if he didn’t want to remove his head, maybe he’d remove his ears instead.

Patrick did _not_ want to remove his ears.

He wasn’t sure where to go, he didn’t know this forest and the creatures would probably find him. But then—

“Grab on!”

Patrick knew that voice. “Joe!” he cried, looking up to where the curly-haired boy threw a rope from the top of a rocky cliff. With no time to waste, Patrick grabbed onto the rope and immediately began to climb. This was yet another situation where he felt like he needed to have participated better in gym class throughout the years, but there was no point in dwelling on it now. He’d remember that when he got back home, though — the last thing he wanted was to end up on yet another rescue mission and die from exhaustion.

It was surprising that he had yet to need his inhaler, which was good since he didn’t have it.

Upon reaching the top, Patrick was so thrilled to see Joe again – and that the boy had saved his life, to boot – that he threw his arms around him and crushed the boy in a hug. Joe was unresponsive at first, but then patted Patrick’s back awkwardly. “Okay, okay, enough of that.”

He wasn’t sure why he did it – he must have been _really_ happy – but before letting go, Patrick leaned in quickly and gave Joe a small kiss on the cheek.

As he stepped back, Patrick noticed that Joe’s eyebrows had shot up toward his hairline.

And that’s when the ground collapsed beneath them.

They were tumbling, sliding down a stone tunnel toward a _disgusting_ smell. Patrick had a good idea of where this tunnel was leading. His fears were confirmed when they reached the end, where Patrick could see beneath them the most reekingly odorous sludge that he had seen in his entire life. Joe shot out from the ledge of the tunnel but caught onto a branch with his quick reflexes to keep from plunging into the bog. Patrick, being small enough to squeeze into tight spaces, turned his body sideways and kicked his legs up against the opposite side of the tunnel, preventing himself from falling over the ledge.

It was enough — having slowed down, Patrick was no longer had the momentum to keep sliding and was able to balance himself.

“Patrick!”

He leaned over to see Joe hanging onto the branch, terrified. “Hold on, I’m gonna pull you up!” Patrick called down to him, reaching out an arm.

Joe missed Patrick’s hand the first time he reached up for it, but he managed a grab on the second try. He was heavy – Patrick expected that – but Patrick was afraid that he’d go tumbling over the edge with Joe before he managed to lift the other boy to safety. Maybe this day wasn’t actually happening — maybe he had bumped his head in gym at school and passed out and this is just a nightmare to teach him to make a better effort. But even in a dream, Patrick refused to let himself give up and threw all of his upper-body strength into rescuing his friend.

Somehow, he actually managed to pull the other boy up over the ledge. Joe let out a huge breath and collapsed on his back. Patrick, meanwhile, pulled his denim sleeve over his hand and lifted the hand to his face, covering his nose and mouth. “Motherfucker,” he wheezed. “What is that horrible smell?”

“ _That_ is the bog of eternal stench,” Joe confirmed.

“Gross.”

“Yeah, well, what did you go and do that for?”

The outburst surprised Patrick. “What, rescue you? You’re my friend, asshole, though I’m really having second thoughts now.”

“No,” Joe said. “You kissed me!”

Great, because as if Patrick’s day couldn’t get any worse, now he had to deal with Joe’s apparent homophobia. He pushed himself up off the ground and climbed out of the tunnel onto a rockier surface. There had to be a path somewhere that led down from the cliff, or at least a side where they could climb down without breaking their necks. The search did not continue for very long, though, because within moments, the rocks beneath his feet crumbled, and Patrick found himself falling over the edge of the cliff and into—

Huh. Not _into_ anything at all, but _onto_ something hard…and moving.

“Andy!”

He clambered to his feet and held out a hand to help the ginger man up. “I am so sorry,” Patrick began. “All you do is fall when you’re around me.”

Andy laughed. “It’s all good, kid.”

Patrick noticed that Joe, who had fallen with him because he had still been following even after his outburst about the kiss, was standing again and frowning at Andy. That’s right, he forgot that Joe and Andy didn’t have the chance to meet since Joe had abandoned him only moments before Patrick met Andy — because of Andy, in fact. It had been Andy’s yelping while tied by his ankles that sent the other boy running. And yet, somehow, Patrick considered this kid his friend. He needed to make better friends.

“Joe, this is Andy,” he introduced them, gesturing to ginger man, “and that’s Joe,” pointing back at his curly-haired pal.

Andy waved, but Joe continued to look at him apprehensively. “This place reeks,” the older man commented. “Any idea of how to get out of here? I’m not even sure how I ended up here in the first place, but I can’t find a path anywhere.”

Patrick shook his head. “I don’t—wait! I think I see a bridge!”

The three of them turned to the bubbling, foul-smelling bog to where a rickety bridge did appear to provide passage across the bog. Andy mumbled something about it being strange, that he hadn’t seen it there before, but Patrick had grown far used to the labyrinth’s shenanigans by now. Maybe it wasn’t quite a piece of cake, but he could handle this.

He had taken maybe two steps at most before their path was blocked by…a girl?

“Stop!” she yelled, holding up her hands in front of them.

“Please,” Patrick pleaded. “We need to get across. I only have a little time left to get to the castle in the center of the labyrinth.”

The girl held up her chin defiantly. “Without my permission, no one may cross.”

Patrick, Joe, and Andy shared a glance. None of them knew what to do. Nobody wanted to hurt a girl, especially one who was even smaller than Patrick, and even if they _did_ try to take her, a battle so close to the bog could result in someone falling in. It wasn’t worth the risk. Patrick looked at her again. Like everyone else he met, with the exception of Andy, she seemed even younger than Patrick. Maybe he could reason with her — he didn’t have time to find a new route all the way around this horrific bog.

But maybe he could reason with her. “Please,” he pleaded again.

She shook her fiery red hair. “I took an oath,” she explained, “and I must defend it to my death. Not that I want to die, but well, I did what I did.”

“Okay.” An oath. Patrick could maybe work with that. There had to be some sort of loophole, right? Something that would allow her to keep her oath while also letting them cross the bridge. “Can you tell us _exactly_ what you swore?”

“I swore with my life’s blood that no one shall pass this way without my permission.”

Well.

That was pretty simple, wasn’t it?

“Well,” Patrick began, “can we have your permission?”

She seemed to think it over a moment but gave the impression of someone who had already made up her mind. Finally, she responded in the affirmative. “Yes.”

Patrick smiled. “Thank you, uhhh…?”

“Hayley.”

“Thank you, Hayley.” She stepped aside, and Patrick stepped forward. The bridge looked very rickety — all this trouble to cross a bridge and it looked like it wouldn’t even hold him. Patrick was not unbearably heavy, but he was far from light. “Oh fuck,” he muttered as he stepped onto the bridge and it shook under his foot. This did not seem safe, but did he really have any other choice? He nonetheless hesitated because who would want to stink for the rest of their lives just because they tried to cross a damn bridge?

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Hayley told him. “This bridge has lasted for a thousand years, you’re good.”

To demonstrate, Hayley gave the bridge a swift kick with her foot. It reminded Patrick a little bit of car dealers smacking the vehicles to demonstrate their endurance. However, unlike a car – which he had never seen crumble beneath a dealer’s hand (but Patrick didn’t have his own car so he couldn’t confirm that it never happens) – the ropes holding the bridge immediately snapped. Joe and Andy immediately reached out to pull Patrick back onto the solid ground. His heart almost jumped out of his chest at just how _close_ that had been.

“It seemed solid enough,” Hayley pouted as she looked at where the bridge used to stand.

Andy then stepped forward. “I’ve got this,” he told them as he pulled two sticks from his pocket — the same two sticks Patrick had seen him drumming while hanging.

He crouched down and began…drumming with them.

Right there on the ground.

Patrick was about to comment that he had no idea how this was supposed to help, when suddenly he noticed a giant rock emerging from the dark, disgusting sludge water. He then drummed a little faster, and Patrick watched another rock appear from the water. A different rhythm brought a small boulder rolling down from behind them, dropping into the bog and wading into place with the other rocks.

When there were enough rocks side by side in the bog to create a new, more stable bridge, Patrick turned to Andy with a giant grin on his face. “That was amazing!” he exclaimed. “And your drumming was so kickass, dude. Holy fuck, I am blown away.”

Andy furrowed his brow. “Drumming?”

Oh, that’s right. They probably didn’t have drums in this world or, if they did, used a different term for them. “That uhh…thing you did with the sticks.”

The older man nodded his thanks and approached their new, makeshift bridge.

Patrick watched as Andy took the first step.

It held.

He whooped in excitement and followed. The rocks made some sort of farting sounds as they walked across them, probably because they had come from the bog. Wait a minute — if these rocks had been covered in bog water, didn’t that mean that all of them would then stink forever after stepping on them? Or maybe the water evaporated from the surface of the rocks, but in that case, what was causing the farting sounds? Patrick was thinking way too much. If his shoe would carry that odor for the rest of his life, surely he could throw it out.

As soon as all four travelers – Hayley joining their little motley crew – had made it to the other side, Patrick took a breath. Bad idea — he could still taste the stench.

“Okay, now let’s get the hell out of here,” he announced.

Hayley made her way up front to take the lead. “We should make it to the castle well before daytime at this rate,” she informed them.

None of them noticed Joe lagging behind a moment before quickening his pace to keep up.

* * *

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Pete commanded, looking into his crystal where he could see Joe attempt to dispose of the peach in the bog of stench.

Pete was beginning to get annoyed. Patrick was getting far too close to the castle and Joe still had not given him the peach, instead intending to abandon his task. Did he think Pete wouldn’t know? There was nothing that Pete didn’t know in his own labyrinth. He watched the skittish, curly-haired boy jump at the booming voice that only Joe would hear – besides the other _goblins_ in the throne room – and quickly stuff the peach back into his pocket before running to keep up with the rest of the group.

And that _group_. It kept _growing_.

There were far too many people who were willing to blindly follow Patrick. How did the boy inspire such loyalty in everyone he met?

Pete held out the crystal to where Kevin sat. “Is this what you’re looking for, Patrick?”

The man glared his thus-far signature glare at Pete.

“So much trouble over such a horrible, ungrateful thing,” Pete commented, shooting a look at Kevin that simply dared him to argue. However, the man held his tongue. “Oh, but not for long. He’ll soon forget you, my _pal_ ,” the king told Kevin. “As soon as Joe delivers that present, Patrick will soon forget _everything_. And then he will be mine.”

“Pervert,” he heard the man mutter.

Pete didn’t bother defending himself. It didn’t matter what the man thought of him. All that mattered was that soon, Patrick would only have eyes for him.

* * *

Patrick didn’t quite realize how long he had been journeying through the labyrinth without so much as food or water until Andy’s stomach growled. He had tuned out his hunger due to the seriousness of his situation, but now it was difficult to ignore.

“Was that your stomach or mine?” Hayley asked.

Andy groaned. “ _Hungry_.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed, “but we can’t stop now. Maybe we can find some berries or something to munch on while we walk.”

Joe, who had been hanging back for most of the walk since they left the bog – Patrick attributed this to the offending kiss he had given him – suddenly jogged up to Patrick’s side. “Hey, Patrick?” he asked quietly, seeming nervous. “You said you’re hungry, right? I found something, I was saving it for myself but…this has been a long day for you, I think, and you deserve it far more than I do.” Patrick’s mouth practically watered at the sight of the fresh-looking peach that Joe removed from his pocket.

“No, Joe, that’s yours,” he protested.

The other boy shook his head and held it forward. “Please, take it. You need it the most.”

Patrick bit his lip. He didn’t want to take the other boy’s fruit, especially when it was possible that they might not find anything edible for quite some time, but he really _was_ hungry. Although Pete spend up his time back in the tunnel, and therefore Patrick had not been in the underground for quite so long as he otherwise might have been, it had been several hours. Nodding, he took the peach from Joe’s hand and raised it to his mouth.

He knew something was wrong the moment he took a bite. Something was off about the fruit. It was like a drug, and the intoxication was hitting him instantly.

“It tastes strange…”

Even as both his sight and his brain began to blur, Patrick did not miss the look of intense guilt and fear that crossed the other boy’s face. “Joe, what have you done?” he slurred, feeling the peach slip from his numb hands.

“Damn you, Pete!” Patrick could hear the other boy muttering, his voice sounding more distant as he must have run away. “And damn me too!”

Patrick’s sight was almost entirely blurred, he couldn’t see a thing. He was having trouble keeping his balance, and he didn’t feel when he fell but he recognized at one point that there was a hard surface beneath him. His head was spinning and he couldn’t think clearly. Colours were dancing before his eyes. How long had he been on the ground? And what was that? There was something coming nearer, something…actually clear…

He saw images. That looked like…him. But it couldn’t be him. That boy looked pretty with his styled blonde hair and his glittering suit.

Where was he going again?

* * *

Patrick found himself turning around in the ballroom. He couldn’t remember why he was there. He couldn’t remember a single thing before that moment, before looking around at all the dancers around him and feeling intimidated by them. Although they were all wearing masks and he couldn’t see a single face besides his own, he got the impression that they were all far older than him. They watched him as he walked through the room, searching for…something. There was something here he was supposed to find. Or maybe…was it someone?

He caught a glimpse of a figure with dark glittering hair standing in the center of the room. The figure removed his horned mask to reveal—

The most beautiful man Patrick had ever seen.

At least, that he could remember.

The man was staring down at him. Patrick was frozen in place and unable to look away. Those amber eyes looked directly into his soul and wound their way around his heart. Patrick had no idea where he even came from, why he was even here, but he _knew_ that this was the man he was meant to find.

He continued to stare and drink in the beauty radiating from the man when someone danced into his path.

And the man…disappeared.

Oh, no.

Patrick had to find the man. This was his purpose.

He began to search through the crowds for him, but to no avail. Each couple, threesome, foursome he met did not reveal those mesmerising amber eyes. Patrick also got the distinct impression that these people were _laughing_ at him. One couple had even revealed to him a box with a creature inside of it and outright laughed in his face when he cowered. He couldn’t even remember what the creature was called. He thought he spotted the man once or twice with other dancing partners, but each time he got close, the man disappeared again. It was like he was an illusion that Patrick could not catch.

Though, Patrick felt as though _he_ was the one who was supposed to be caught. In fact, he found himself _yearning_ for it.

* * *

Pete watched as Patrick searched aimlessly throughout the ballroom for him. This was exactly what he wanted: himself as the only thing on Patrick’s mind, the object of his desire. And he could not deny that the chase was just as fun.

The boy was like a moth drawn to a flame, and Pete…Pete would burn him.

He couldn’t wait.

Patrick looked absolutely _delicious_ in the outfit Pete had conjured up for him. His hair was styled in such a fashion that Pete would like grab onto it as the boy begged beneath him, and beg he would. Pete had such grand ideas for what he would do to Patrick as soon as the boy was his, but he continued instead to dance with other members of his court and just watch the boy search for him. Mikey had commented to him, during their own little waltz, that this seemed like a lot of effort when Pete could just snap his fingers and have Patrick at his mercy. And while Pete knew that was true, there was just no fun in that.

He wanted the boy to come to him.

However, Pete was also _desperate_. He enjoyed watching Patrick wander around with no other goal besides finding Pete, but Pete was aching to get his hands on the boy. He had Ashlee draped over his one side and Meagan on the other, but it was not enough.

Pete wanted _Patrick_.

So, the next time Patrick neared him, Pete stayed. And he caught the wonderous gaze of the boy who had finally found what he sought.

Stepping away from Ashlee and Meagan, he reached out to take Patrick’s hand and slide his arm around the boy’s waist. Patrick didn’t even protest, immediately leaning into the touch and placing his hand on Pete’s shoulder. It was electric — Pete felt something jolt within his body. He had never felt this way before, he had never wanted someone so much as he wanted this delectable young boy. Patrick stared into his eyes the entire time they danced, not breaking his gaze once. Pete was enraptured.

He thought about how it would feel to have the boy’s lips on him.

Pete fought the urge to ravish him then and there.

While it was certainly his court and no one would be surprised if he chose to have his way with the boy in front of an audience, Pete did not want to share. The only person who would see the boy in any state of undress would be _Pete_.

But…there was something wrong.

As they continued to dance, Pete noticed that the boy was becoming less content with gazing at Pete and his eyes wandered. It was not a wandering gaze as though he had found another object to desire, but instead an…anxious wandering, as though he was worried about something. Pete tightened his grip on both the boy’s waist and shoulder, ensuring that he would not be able to back away. However, he could feel Patrick subconsciously moving back from Pete, like the king was something to fear.

Well, he was, but Patrick wasn’t supposed to know that.

Patrick wasn’t even supposed to remember him. Patrick wasn’t supposed to remember anything but his desire for Pete.

* * *

He thought this was his purpose: to find the enticing man and dance with him. And for a while, it had felt good. But people were still staring at Patrick. People were still _laughing_ at Patrick, and it caused an uneasy feeling in Patrick’s gut. Then—

The clock. It struck twelve out of thirteen.

_Thirteen_.

What was so important about that number?

Patrick couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing, but he had this horrified feeling that he was running out of time.

This was…a diversion.

He wasn’t supposed to be here, he was supposed to be…somewhere else. He was supposed to be looking for _someone_ else. The moment he realized that, he tore himself out of the tight grasp that the man had on him. The man must have known something, because he had been hesitant to let Patrick go. The boy backed away into the laughing crowd. Running out of time…running out of time…he needed to get _out of here_. But how? Patrick could see no doors, no windows, no means of getting in or out of his ballroom.

But the walls…they looked like glass. Maybe that was it.

Patrick ran toward the nearest empty table and grabbed one of the golden chairs from it. If he couldn’t find an exit, then he would _make_ one.

Raising the chair, Patrick used all of his strength to throw it directly into the wall. The glass immediately shattered and screams could be heard throughout the room. Patrick was not focused on the screams, however, as he found himself falling from the crystal ballroom. Broken glass floated in the air around him as he fell, as did tables, chairs, curtains, and even some of the dancers. Nothing else seemed to be falling besides Patrick, who was suddenly wearing a different than he had been moments earlier. He still couldn’t remember anything, but something about these clothes was comforting. They felt more…him.

Patrick kept falling until he landed in a pile of…something. He didn’t even register yet where he was before he passed out.

* * *

Consciousness came to him slowly. He couldn’t remember where he was or what he had been dreaming, but Patrick had this weird feeling that he had just experienced a nightmare. Opening his eyes, he slowly took in the scene around him. He appeared to be in some sort of junkyard, and was laying at the bottom of a massive heap of broken furniture and trinkets. There was something in his hand—

“Ughhh, gross!” he exclaimed as he noticed the worm crawling out of the peach. He tossed the offending fruit as far as he could.

Now, what was he doing here again?

Patrick placed a hand on the nearest surface and pushed himself to his feet. However, upon standing, he noticed that the junk pile he used for support was moving. He could hear grumbling followed by an irritated, “hey man, get off my back!”

He turned to find a man crouching in the junk where Patrick must have pushed him. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry.”

The man stood up and the first thing Patrick noticed was that he was _much_ taller than Patrick. The second thing he noticed was the man’s dark skin. He couldn’t see the man’s hair beneath his hat, but Patrick had no doubt that it was probably curly from the curly beard on his face. Finally, he noticed that the man was actually _wearing_ the junk — not all of it, but there was a large pile of trinkets on his back. Despite Patrick’s apology, the man did not look very pleased with him as he straightened his back.

“Yeah, well, look where you’re going next time,” he warned him.

“I was looking…”

“Oh, yeah?” the man asked. “And where exactly are you going, hmm?” The question seemed almost like a challenge, like Patrick wouldn’t know the answer. However, as he found himself thinking about the answer, Patrick realized that he _didn’t_ know.

“I don’t remember…” he muttered.

“Well, you can’t look where you’re going if you don’t even know where you’re going.”

The man’s logic made sense, but that didn’t help Patrick feel any better. In fact, Patrick felt extremely uncomfortable now that he realized he didn’t know where he was going. How had he even ended up here? Where _was_ here? And what was he even doing? He was…Patrick was pretty sure he had been looking for something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. There was this uneasy feeling in his stomach that he was running out of time, but he couldn’t exactly hurry up if he couldn’t _remember_ …

“Oh hey, was this it?” the man asked, holding out…Patrick’s guitar. That seemed right. Patrick played guitar, he must have been looking for his guitar. He reached out to grab the instrument. “Oh…yes, thanks.”

“That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it?”

Patrick nodded. “Yes,” he responded, though something still didn’t feel right. “I forgot.”

“Well, how about you come in here and see if there’s anything else you like, hmm?” The man gestured toward an opening in the nearest junk pile. Patrick nodded again and pushed the curtain aside as he entered, blinking at the brightness of…his own bedroom on the other side. He was back _home_. Patrick felt a weight drop off his shoulders.

He placed his guitar down on the floor and propped it up against his desk as he flopped down on his bed, covering his eyes with his hand for a moment. “It was just a dream…” he said to no one in particular. “It seemed so real…but I dreamed it all…” Patrick took a couple breaths and simply enjoyed the comfort of his bed for a moment before sitting up. He needed to see if his mom was home yet, he couldn’t remember what, but he was sure that he had something to ask her. He’d probably remember as soon as he saw her. Swinging his legs over the bed, Patrick got up and made his way to the door. “Mom—”

The person on the other side of the door was not his mother.

“Best to stay in here,” the tall, dark-skinned man with the junk on his back said as he entered Patrick’s room. “There’s nothing out there that’ll interest you. Oh!” the man walked over toward the corner of Patrick’s room. “What’s this here?”

It was Patrick’s drum set.

“And oh, here you go!” he picked up Patrick’s bass and handed it to him. “You don’t want to forget that, do you?”

No, Patrick supposed not.

The man couldn’t pick up the drum set and hand it to Patrick because it was too big and heavy, but he did hand him the drumsticks. He man continued to look through Patrick’s things for absolutely anything that Patrick might want, whether it be another instrument – he had a tambourine somewhere in there, but the keyboard might also be a little big for him to carry – or a book that Patrick hadn’t read in forever. Maybe that was what the man was here for: to remind Patrick of all the things that he had forgotten.

But Patrick had the idea that there was something much bigger than all of this that he was forgetting, something _important_.

As the man continued to rummage through Patrick’s stuff, Patrick caught sight of scattered papers on his desk. He slowly leaned in to see what they said. The one on top looked like lyrics and was titled “Labyrinth.” Patrick picked up the page and read over his lyrics, “through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered…”

He missed the panicked look on the man’s face as he cried, “wait, here! You’re forgetting about this!” and shoved a hat into Patrick’s arms.

However, Patrick was too distracted by this song about…goblins…and magic…

“What’s the matter, man? Don’t you like it?”

Patrick was broken from his reverie at the question. He looked at all the stuff in his arms and on his back. Patrick _did_ love his musical instruments, but they weren’t quite as important as what he was forgetting…if only he could remember what he was forgetting…but he knew one thing: this was all junk. Not necessarily _worthless_ junk, but junk nonetheless. He voiced as such to the man, who scrambled quickly to find something else. “Uhh, what about this?” he asked, holding up an argyle sweater. “This is not junk.”

He took the sweater and looked over it a moment. Then—“Yes it is!” Patrick tossed the sweater across the room.

Immediately, the walls began to cave in, as though Patrick’s realization that this junk was not what he sought caused the illusion to fall apart. Suddenly, he remembered exactly what it was that he had forgotten. “Shit! I still need to save Kevin!”

As everything continued to fall apart around him, Patrick could hear someone calling his name. That sounded like…Hayley? That was Hayley, he couldn’t believe he had already forgotten the fiery redhead. And…Andy? He could also hear Andy’s voice calling him. Patrick saw a tunnel open up before him and climbed into it, junk continuing to roll down beside him as he made his way up. A hand grabbed onto his and helped pull him forward, where he was greeted by Andy’s relieved face and Hayley’s excited clapping. Holding onto Andy for balance as he stood, he noticed that he was still in the junkyard.

“Patrick!” Hayley exclaimed, pulling him into a hug. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah…where are we?”

Just because he could tell that he was in the junkyard didn’t mean he knew _where_ the junkyard is. For all Patrick knew, he was outside the labyrinth again. That would have been a serious setback, but of course, that’s what Pete wanted.

“We’re almost there!” Hayley told him as she let go of him. She pointed ahead. “Look, those are the gates to the goblin city!”

A wave of relief washed over Patrick.

“Alright, let’s hurry. We don’t have much time left and I don’t think this is over yet.”

None of them heard the worried “oh no” muttered behind them as they pressed forward toward the gates. A short armoured figure seemed to be guarding the gate, but the figure also appeared to be asleep. There did not seem to be another way into the city from what Patrick could see, but he was sure that the guard would not let them in without a fight, so he continued looking around for any other entrance. Meanwhile, Hayley walked right up past the sleeping guard to bang on the gate. “Open up! Open up right now!”

Patrick whirled around to face her. “Don’t! You’ll wake the guard!”

But Hayley ignored him, yelling, “Don’t make me fight you, I promise I will!” as she continued pounding on the gate. She then turned to the sleeping guard and banged on its armour. “Wake up! Let us in!”

The guard snorted as though it was waking up, but it did not make any movement.

“Hayley, _please_.”

She stopped and looked at him. “For my sake,” Patrick pleaded, “be quiet. We need to do this _quickly_ and we have a better shot of doing so if we’re alive.”

The girl sighed. “Fine. But I’m not a coward.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone could accuse you of being a coward,” Andy remarked as he simply pushed open the wooden gate.

Patrick nodded, and the three of them quietly made their way through the entrance. The city seemed much quieter than Patrick was expecting. This was Pete’s kingdom, wasn’t it? There should have been protections set up to prevent them from entering, so the silence felt almost like they were walking into a trap. “I smell trouble,” he commented only seconds before the wooden gate slammed shut behind them. All three of them spun around to look at their now blocked exit. Well, now there was no choice — they would _have_ to keep going.

However, a wall began to solidify in front of them and…there was something forming in the wall. Besides the wall itself, of course.

It was a massive armoured monster.

“Who goes?” its voice boomed as it freed itself from the wall and approached them.

“Who goes?”

It kept moving closer and the group moved backward, but all of a sudden, spikes shot out of the ground behind them. Patrick yelped as he almost caught his jean jacket on one. There was nowhere else for them to go. The monster turned to its side and grabbed a giant axe that had been sitting against the wall and then turned back to the scared three, its red eyes flying back and forth between each one of them.

“Watch out!” Patrick cried as the monster brought down the axe and he leaped out of the way.

He figured it was probably best if they split up, so that the monster would be divided between them. However, he did not have the chance to voice this before the monster began swinging the axe back and forth, likely realizing that it was the best chance to hit _anyone_ instead of aiming for any single one of them in specific. Nonetheless, it seemed like the other two came to the same conclusion Patrick did, as he noticed Hayley run in one direction and Andy in the other. Patrick followed along with Andy while the monster kept swinging its axe.

Then Patrick saw something on the ledge above the wall.

“Joe!”

The curly-haired boy ignored him and jumped directly onto the monster’s back. He tore its head right off…or its helmet, as there appeared to be a man with long dark, scraggly hair inside, directing the monster’s actions. Joe did not hesitate for a moment. “Get out of there!” he demanded before outright _pushing_ the man out of the giant suit of armour. The man landed on the ground and spat out, “that wasn’t very nice.”

Andy took one look at him and growled.

The dark-haired man jerked back before scrambling to his feet and running off.

“My turn now,” Joe commented as he climbed into the suit of armour. “How the hell do you drive this thing?” Patrick couldn’t actually see what he was doing up there, but it seemed as though he was pulling levers and pushing buttons aimlessly.

“Drop the axe!” Patrick called up to him.

“I’m trying!”

Joe couldn’t figure out how to drop the axe or even power down the armour. Whatever he was doing up there was not working.

It wasn’t long before the armour appeared to be visibly malfunctioning. If Joe stayed up there much longer, he was surely going to get himself killed. “Get out of there, Joe!” Patrick yelled, and the curly-haired boy nodded. He climbed up out of the armour and, noticing no easier way to get down, jumped. Patrick and Andy both moved forward to catch him, causing the three of them to tumble to the ground together. The armour, which had gotten its axe lodged into the wall, sparked for a moment before stopping altogether.

“Joe!” Patrick turned to his friend. “Are you alright?”

Now that they were actually sitting together on the ground, face to face, the other boy looked ashamed. “I’m not asking to be forgiven,” he said. “But Pete made me give you that peach, I told you I was a coward. And…I’m not interested in being friends.”

“But I _do_ forgive you, Joe.”

The other boy’s eyes widened in shock. “You _do?_ Why?”

“Coward?!” Hayley burst out. “Did you _see_ what you just did right there? You saved our asses, man. That was one of the most courageous things I’ve ever seen!”

“Wait…really?”

Andy nodded. “Fuck yeah, kid. That was incredible.”

He couldn’t help it this time just like he couldn’t the last time either — Patrick threw his arms around Joe and pulled him into a tight hug. However, this time Joe wrapped his arms around Patrick and returned the hug with his as much fervour. They sat there for a moment, embraced, before Patrick remembered that they had no time to waste. Patrick let go and climbed back to his feet, holding out his hand to help up his friend.

As soon as all four of them were standing together again, Joe pointed up at the castle. “Right — now let’s go get the rat that calls himself Pete!”

* * *

Pete looked up at the clock. There were only fifteen minutes left before Patrick was out of time, only fifteen minutes left until Pete _won_. He was almost there, he could almost _taste_ the look of desperation and defeat on the boy’s face—

“Your highness! Your highness! It’s him!”

A messenger broke Pete from his thoughts. He turned from his seat on the throne, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s him!” the messenger repeated. “The boy who ate the peach and forgot everything!”

Pete rolled his eyes. “What of him?”

“He’s here! He’s come with the guy who does the rock thing with the sticks, the girl who guards the bog of stench, and the coward who works for you!”

“What?!”

Oh, no. This was not good. This was not good _at all_. Fifteen minutes was still cutting it close, but if he didn’t do something, Patrick could very well make it to the castle in that time and…win. And Pete could _not_ let that happen. He was not going to lose the boy that easily, especially not after having lost him once in the ballroom already. Pete ignored the smug look on Kevin’s face – still sitting in the center of the room where he’d been for hours – and leapt to his feet. He needed to slow the boy down so that he did not reach the castle.

“Call the guards!” Pete instructed the messenger.

He then turned to Mikey, who was sitting obediently by Pete’s side as always. “Take the brother somewhere and hide him.” The bespectacled man nodded and gestured for Gerard and Frank to help him. Kevin protested as the men grabbed onto him and dragged him out of the room, but Pete barely noticed. His mind was elsewhere.

Pete was angry. Pete was furious. Pete was, against all odds, _scared_.

Patrick must be stopped.

* * *

As the four travellers made their way through the city, Patrick felt his confidence grow. “I think we’re actually gonna make it,” he said. He wasn’t sure how much time was left, but since Pete had yet to make an appearance, Patrick knew he had to have some time left. And with the castle sitting only yards away from him…well, it was a—

“Piece of cake,” Joe said, repeating Patrick’s earlier words to Pete about the labyrinth.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, however, when suddenly a mass of armoured individuals stepped into their path and blocked the wall. More came rolling from the corners, bringing with them…were those _cannons?_ Okay, Patrick definitely knew he wasn’t out of time yet because Pete would call his entire army to protect the castle from a bunch of kids unless he was genuinely scared that Patrick might actually _win_. That should have been a confidence boosting moment – he actually had that evil king _frightened_ – but as the first cannon went off, instead his heart began to race.

“Quick! This way!” he gestured for the other three to follow him.

Andy and Joe came quickly behind him, but Hayley tore off in another direction. “It’s better if we split up!” she called as she disappeared into the distance, and Patrick had to agree with her. There was a formidable army, but they would have a more difficult time defeating them if they weren’t all in the same place.

Patrick would not have been able to say how long the battle went on, but it couldn’t have been for very long in the end.

He could hear Hayley yelling in various parts of the city, working as a perfect distraction for the army. Patrick was gonna have to thank her as soon as they all reached the castle — she was making it far easier for he, Joe, and Andy to go undetected as they ducked in and out of houses, corners, and wherever they could find cover. Every so often Patrick looked up at the castle to see Pete watching out the window, determination on his face. Patrick was equally as determined and could not wait to wipe the look from Pete’s face when he managed to meet his deadline. It was going to happen, he was not going to fail.

They managed to evade Pete’s army and within minutes, Patrick climbed the steps to the castle. Turning around, he noticed that only Joe and Andy were with him.

“Wait, where’s Hayley?” he asked.

He looked out and listened. She was still in the city somewhere. Despite being so close to finishing his quest, Patrick directed Joe and Andy to follow him back down into the city to look for the girl. He refused to leave her to the army — friends don’t leave friends behind.

The three of them continued their evasion tactics of hiding behind walls, in corners, and even ducking into homes as they searched for their bright-haired friend. Pete’s army was an absolute mess — not only did they fail to track down the group of them and clearly continued to miss Hayley was well, but their aim was absolutely deplorable. On the rare opportunities that one of Pete’s men _did_ spot Patrick, the cannonball would end up through a wall more than several inches from his head. Patrick would have to thank Pete for employing such useless soldiers when he finally _did_ come face to face with the man again.

“Hayley?” Patrick called out. From somewhere in the near distance, he heard her respond, “coming!”

That was good enough for Patrick.

Knowing that she was coming, he again made his way up the castle steps. Joe and Andy came right behind him, and together the three of them tried to open the doors but they wouldn’t budge. Oh god, what if this was it? What is Patrick lost all because he couldn’t open a damn door? That would be so unf—of course it would be unfair, that was Pete.

Suddenly, Hayley appeared on the step beside them and threw her weight into the door. Patrick, Joe, and Andy resumed pushing along with her, and with the added weight of Hayley (what little it was) to help them, the door creaked open.

Patrick pointed ahead. “This way!”

The four of them made their way to the throne room, which appeared to be abandoned. A clock on the wall indicated that Patrick had only three minutes left.

There was only one other exit in the room.

“He must have gone that way,” Patrick said, running in the direction of the staircase. Joe nodded, “let’s go!”

Patrick turned around to face his friends. “No, I need to face him alone.”

“But why?” Hayley asked.

“Because…that’s just the way it’s done. It has to be me and him.”

“Well, if that’s the way it’s done…” she began, looking uncertain but accepting of Patrick’s decision. “Then I guess that’s the way you must do it. But,” she added, “should you never need us, I hope you’ll remember to call.”

“Yes,” Joe said. “Should you ever need us…”

Patrick smiled. “I’ll call,” he assured them, turning away from his friends for what might have been the last time and climbing the steps.

He ran as fast as he could to the top, coming out eventually in what looked to be a broken room. Pieces of the stone walls were crumbling, and there was a purple aura surrounding it, as though they were in some sort of void. Initially, Patrick thought he was alone, but he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. Looking across the room, he watched as Pete – this time dressed in a lighter, more flowy fabric – emerged from behind one of the crumbling pillars. His face looked weathered, as though confirming his defeat, but Patrick knew it wasn’t going to be that simple. Pete would never accept defeat so easily.

“Give me my brother,” Patrick demanded.

“Patrick…” Pete began. “Beware. I have been generous up until now, but I _can_ be cruel.”

“Generous? What have you done that was generous?”

“Everything!” the king spat. “Everything that you have wanted, I have done! You asked that your brother be taken — I took him. You cowered before me — I was frightening,” he explained. “I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for _you_. I’m exhausted living up to your expectations, isn’t that generous?”

Patrick thought for a moment. How on earth would he defeat the goblin king?

Then—

Of course. His _song_.

Patrick had created this world when he began writing that song, so that had to be the key. He held power over this entire world and Pete didn’t even _know_. Or, maybe Pete _did_ know and that’s why he was so frightened — he knew it was possible for Patrick to destroy this world just as easily as he created it. The only problem was that Patrick was so indecisive about the lyrics, changing them frequently when he was unhappy with what he had already written. It was hard enough for him to remember lyrics that he had memorized ages ago, let alone lyrics that he was constantly changing when the light hit him.

He had to try. He _had_ to. This was his only chance.

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered,” he began, “I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city to take back the child that you have stolen…” Not that Kevin was a child, but well, Patrick hadn’t been writing the song about _Kevin_.

Patrick continued, “my will is as strong as yours, and my king—”

“Wait!”

Pete, exuding desperation, conjured another crystal and held it up toward Patrick’s face. “Look at what I am offering you! It’s your dreams.”

“—my kingdom as great—”

“I ask for so little,” Pete added. His voice betrayed him, he sounded positively terrified. Patrick knew he was on the right path with the lyrics if this is how Pete was reacting. The dark-haired man continued, “just let me _rule_ you, and you can have everything you want.”

That didn’t quite sound right. Let _Pete_ rule him and _Patrick_ could have everything he wanted? That sounded like a manipulative relationship waiting to happen, but what did he expect from a master manipulator? The man was desperate, he would have said _anything_ to keep Patrick from continuing to recite his lyrics. Patrick was already winning – the world was already crumbling around them – and all he had to do was finish the verse. There was still a time limit, though, and Pete was clearly stalling — Patrick needed to ignore him and keep going.

But…he couldn’t remember the next line.

“My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great…” he repeated, trying to remember what came next. “Damn! I can never remember that line.”

The anxiety did not completely wash from Pete’s face, but the man seemed to have regained a little confidence from that one admission. Still holding out the crystal to Patrick, he tilted his head and looked directly into the boy’s eyes. “Just _fear_ me, _love_ me, _do as I say_ ,” he pleaded, “and I will be your _slave_.”

Patrick was at a loss. He wasn’t going to make it, he was out of—

Wait.

He lifted his chin and met Pete’s gaze. “You have no power over me,” he finished.

The struck thirteen and the room around them fell apart even faster. Pete threw his crystal up in the air as he fell back. Patrick watched as the crystal came back down and landed in his hands, popping immediately. The fabric that had made up Pete’s outfit was flowing through the air but there was no longer a person in it — Pete was gone. Patrick had _won_. He watches as the pillars continue to fall and the bundle of clothing disappeared into the shadows, before everything else began to disappear around him.

Patrick felt the shadows at the edge of his mind, and he was falling, falling—

* * *

Patrick shook his head. He felt like he had just blacked out or something.

What was going on?

He opened his eyes and glanced around at his surroundings. Patrick was standing in his brother’s bedroom alone. It took him a moment to remember what he was doing there — he could vaguely remember an argument with Kevin, followed by…his guitar!

Patrick ran into the hallway and came to an immediate stop.

There was his guitar, sitting on the floor.

Had Kevin dropped it?

That was weird. He better not have damaged it. Patrick approached the instrument slowly, as though it would jump up and attack him if he wasn’t careful. Reaching the guitar, he crouched down to pick it up. It didn’t appear to be damaged, and at least Kevin had left it instead of giving to…who was it that wanted to play it? Oh, that’s right: that asshole Adam. He quickly retuned the guitar to his own bedroom before heading downstairs to his spot at the door. It was starting to get late but there were still some trick or treaters out there. As he crossed from the stairs to the front door, he could hear Kevin’s laugher in the kitchen.

Usually he would roll his eyes, but for some reason…he was actually kinda glad that Kevin was home again.

Patrick was unsure of where that came from.

Sitting back down on the chair by the door, Patrick kept one ear on the party behind him and one on the doorbell. He wanted to make sure that he didn’t miss any of the kids, but he also wanted to keep an ear out for his brother…just in case. It had probably only been another thirty minutes of handing out candy before Patrick was ready to pack it in for the night, though. For some reason he was just feeling exhausted, and he was just about out of candy. He gave the rest to his brother’s guests and turned to head back upstairs.

When, suddenly, there was another knock at the door.

Patrick opened the door only to be met by the most _gorgeous_ eyes he had seen in his entire life.

“Oh shit,” the guy in the doorway said, his golden eyes staring right back at Patrick with a look of wonder on his face. “You’re _hot_.”

He registered a chorus of “trick or treat” but the only thing Patrick could see in that moment was the man standing in front of him with those mesmerising golden eyes, decked out with thick black eyeliner and almost hiding behind the dark bangs in his face. He looked like he had to be older than Patrick, especially since Patrick could notice tattoos peeking out from the worn, loose collar of his shirt — which did not appear to be a costume in any way. Nothing this man wore appeared to be a costume, besides the plastic vampire teeth that accompanied his shit eating – but absolutely _incredible_ – grin.

Patrick watched as the guy, who had been staring at Patrick just as intensely as Patrick had been staring at him, remembered why he was there. “Oh, sorry. That’s right,” he said, holding up a ratty pillowcase that looked like it hadn’t been washed for five years. “Trick or treat!”

“I don’t have any more candy,” he said dumbly.

“That’s alright,” the guy said with a brilliant smile on his face. “I’ll take you instead.”

One of his companions snorted. “Pete, knock it off,” another one said. This time, Patrick did notice the group standing behind him. At least they seemed like they were wearing costumes. The tiny girl with the fiery red hair was wearing a feathered cap and was carrying a staff — Patrick wondered if maybe she was supposed to be some sort of noble? The guy in the glasses seemed to have teased out his ginger hair, taking on the appearance of some sort of animal. He topped off the look with a pair of horns and Patrick was so confused, but hey, it wasn’t _his_ Hallowe’en costume. The last boy wore some sort of puffy shirt and vest, paired with a red hat that barely supressed his curly hair.

The last boy was also taller than anyone else in the group but did not appear to be much older than Patrick — if even older than him at all.

“Sorry about him,” the tiny girl said. God, how old was _she?_ “He’s an incorrigible flirt.”

“Hey!” Pete protested. “I’m a very corrigible flirt.”

“That doesn’t mean what you think it means,” the ginger said, and Pete turned around briefly to flash him the finger before turning his gaze back on Patrick. God, those _eyes_. That _everything_ about him. There was something so familiar about him – actually, about all of them, if he thought about it – but Patrick couldn’t place it. That didn’t matter, though, because Pete was right here and right now and if Patrick did not act fast, Pete would be _gone_ onto the next house to continue searching for someone who _wasn’t_ out of candy.

“Umm, there’s a party,” he told them. “It’s my brother’s, but…you can come in?”

Pete’s face lit up. “A party? Hell yeah!”

Patrick stepped out of the way to let them in and led the group toward the kitchen to find something to drink. He couldn’t be accused of corrupting minors – he was pretty sure that at _least_ two of them were underage, but it was possible they all were – when he was only seventeen himself, right? The horned animal ginger guy – who introduced himself as Andy – declined a beer and instead took a water bottle, but he was able to find something else for the other two — Joe and Hayley, that’s what they said their names were. He saw Kevin as he stepped back from the fridge, and his older brother actually looked _impressed_ with him.

He and Pete ended up in a corner of the living room. Patrick could barely say what they talked about all night – they talked about any and everything, jumping from one subject to the next as their eyes lit up over shared interests or passionate disagreements – but he knew one thing: he had never felt more blissfully content in his entire life.

It should not, then, have surprised him when Pete removed his plastic vampire teeth and leaned in to press a soft kiss on Patrick’s lips.

And yet, it did surprise him.

Here was this absolutely _gorgeous_ guy that he had never met before kissing _him_ – him! Of all people, kissing _Patrick_ – in the middle of a college party (or would it be a post-college party at this point?) where he could probably have _literally_ anyone else. That being said, Patrick wanted this so bad – more than he had ever wanted anything else in his life – that he returned the kiss with fervour. Pete nipped at his lip and Patrick drove in even further, opening up Pete’s mouth and seeking out his tongue. He couldn’t say how long the kiss lasted, but when he finally pulled back to take a breath, his lips felt numb.

“Wow,” he blurted out. Damn, that sounded awkward.

But Pete nodded. “Wow,” he repeated.

The two of them sat there in silence and just _stared_ at one another before finally Joe came along and kicked Pete in the leg. “Come on, man. Stop making out with your boyfriend and take me home, I have a midnight curfew.”

Patrick had almost forgotten that they weren’t alone.

But—

_Boyfriend_.

He liked the sound of that.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Pete muttered as he climbed to his feet. “I swear, the lot of you are like goblins sometimes, always wanting _something_ from me.”

“And you’re our king, so come on, _your majesty_ ,” the curly-haired boy said, pushing Pete in the direction of the door. Patrick followed so that he could, at the very least, say goodbye when the group of them left. If he never saw Pete again – a tragic thought considering the fact that he was just glowing about potentially being Pete’s _boyfriend_ – then he wanted to commit the man to memory. He had forgotten so many things in his life already – his parents, despite being so much older than him, had better memories than he did – but he never wanted to forget the beautiful man who had given him the best Hallowe’en ever.

But when they got to the front door, Andy handed him a piece of paper. “It’s all our phone numbers,” he explained.

Hayley nodded. “That’s right. If you ever need anything…”

“I’ll call,” Patrick promised.

He gave his new friends each a hug before turning to Pete, unsure of what he was supposed to do there. Was this Pete’s normal behaviour? Did he just go around making out with poor, unsuspecting kids at parties and then leaving, never to be seen again? Patrick hoped that Pete would never be so evil, but it was—

Oh.

Pete was kissing him again.

Patrick was initially frozen but soon melted into the quick kiss, grabbing onto Pete because he _never_ wanted to let go. However, it was over far too soon, and the man was pulling back before Patrick could even reciprocate properly.

“Sorry, it’s just…” Pete gestured out the door where his friends were heading toward his car.

Patrick nodded. “It’s okay, I understand.”

“But uhhh,” Pete began, appearing to think over what he wanted to say next. “You’ll call me, right? Please tell me you’ll call me.”

“Of course I’ll call you.”

“Okay, it’s just, you never know, right?” the man was rambling. “And like, what would a perfect boy like you want with a fuck up like me — I worry that the moment I step out of this house tonight I will never see you again, and that thought _hurts_ because I’m already so drawn to you and like, fuck…I would be your _slave_ if you asked me to, you have no idea how much power you have over me—”

“Pete. I promise I will call you. Now get Joe home before he gets grounded.”

The older man nodded. “Right, yeah. I’ll see you?”

Patrick leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’ll see me,” he assured him as Pete finally stepped out the door and walked out of Patrick’s life. For now, anyway.

After his new friends had left, Patrick sought out Kevin, who was back in the kitchen to grab some more drinks for some of his friends – Jesus, how much alcohol did he _have_ in this house? He had only been back home for a day! – and threw his arms around the man in a tight hug. Kevin was caught off-guard for a moment, but soon warmed into the hug and patted Patrick on the back. “What was that for?” Kevin asked as Patrick released him, and Patrick had to think about that for a moment. What _was_ that for?

“I’m just glad you’re here,” Patrick settled on, smiling.

And, as Patrick went back upstairs to his room and looked over his season-appropriate lyrics about goblins and a magical kingdom, he paused.

He had imagined, when writing his song about the mythical underground world, that there would be a handsome king to rule over the goblins. But now…now he was thinking that maybe the kingdom didn’t _need_ a king. Maybe it didn’t need to be a kingdom. Maybe there didn’t need to be any goblins. He’d felt a magic all night that he had never felt before, and _that_ was what he should be writing about — not the cliché magical themes from children’s stories. Patrick grabbed his pen and glanced over at his calendar before turning the page over.

Starting anew on the blank canvass, he wrote, _“Me and Pete in the wake of Saturday.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, if you've read all the way to the end, thank you so much! And as you know, I write way too many notes, so here's some more that I did not want to include in the beginning notes since I didn't want to give away any spoilers.
> 
> Obviously Patrick can't explain what happened because he doesn't remember, and even if he did, he wouldn't quite _know_ , so I figured I would leave it up to the interpretation of the reader. However, whether or not it was a dream or an alternate reality, the Pete, Joe, Andy, and Hayley that he meets at the end are _not_ the same people as those he met in the labyrinth. I tried to demonstrate that with Pete's nervousness and insecurity at the end, which is a stark contrast from the confidence of Goblin King Pete.
> 
> I agonized over the end and there are like 5 different alternate endings to this fic that went unfinished. I knew how I wanted it to end in a way - the whole different Pete - but I wasn't sure how I wanted them to meet. There was a version where Pete was already at the party and bumped into Patrick in the hall, a couple different trick or treating versions, etc. but I am very happy with the ending I chose. The Saturday reference also came to me out of the blue, too — I was prepared to end it with the hug Patrick gave Kevin, but then I wanted to add another piece at the end to reinforce that this was, indeed, a Peterick fic.
> 
> I had always worked out immediately who some of the characters would be - aside from Patrick and Pete, the first ones I cast were Andy and Cobra Starship - but others just kinda wrote themselves as the fic went along.
> 
> Follow me on social media! I'm **padawanryan** on [Tumblr](https://padawanryan.tumblr.com/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/PadawanRyan), and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/padawanryan/). ✌️


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